


After the Life We've Been Through (Can I Ask for a Redo?)

by silverinerivers



Category: The Good Place (TV), The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Heaven, Alternate Universe - The Good Place (TV) Fusion, Apologies, Canon Compliant, Feelings Realization, Fix-It, Friendship, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Multiple, Post-Canon, Reconciliation, Secrets, Sex, Soulmates, Suicidal Thoughts, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:55:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23237311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverinerivers/pseuds/silverinerivers
Summary: So, they died (just a tad too early), but their issues did not die with them. In the afterlife, Mark, Eduardo, Dustin, and Chris meet again and are given a second chance to make things right. But unresolved feelings, secrets, and soulmates makes it hard for each of them to find happiness in “heaven” of all places, especially when something about the Good Place doesn’t feel quite right.(aka the Facebook 4 in the Good Place AU)
Relationships: Chris Hughes/Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin/Mark Zuckerberg
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	1. Welcome Neighbour!

**Author's Note:**

> For this prompt: Facebook 4 in the Good Place AU. https://tsnkinks.dreamwidth.org/1679.html?thread=10383#cmt10383
> 
> I saw this a couple of months ago and the idea gripped me, though I'm not sure if I'll do it justice. I tend to not finish anything too lengthy, but given the current pandemic situation, I suddenly have a lot more free time to work on this.
> 
> There will be spoilers for the TV show "The Good Place" (which is excellent if you haven't watched it), though you do not have to watch it to understand the fic.
> 
> Whomever's still out there reading TSN in 2020, you rock!

Chris wakes up on a slightly hard beige couch, feeling lightheaded. He blinks a couple of times before his eyes focus onto a wall directly facing him, embossed with the bright neon green words: “Welcome! Everything is fine”.

Well…that’s probably discouraging, Chris muses to himself. Just before his mind could process further on where he was, a door to his right swings open and a tall, white-haired, older gentleman pokes his head out with a warm smile.

“Chris? Come on in.”

* * *

The man’s name is Michael, who describes himself as the architect of the Good Place. He walks Chris through the basics of what happened to him in a very short period of time, and Chris in turn prides himself on taking it well and not having a panic attack. Okay, so he died – died a bit (just a _tad)_ too early, but at least that means he has good mobility and hearing for eternity. This is life after death, a so called “Good Place” and Michael is the one in charge of this particular section (or neighbourhood as he called it) of heaven.

“This isn’t exactly what humans think heaven is a lot of the time. We say that about every religion got maybe about 10% right, but the Good Place takes a lot of the best parts of those guesses. Regardless, it is our job to make sure that this will become _your_ paradise for the rest of forever. There’s an orientation later in the day when everyone arrives, but do you have any quick questions for me before I walk you over to your new home?” Michael explains with a light smile, toeing the line between being respectful (Chris did just die after all) and happy about his job (which would not exist without death).

Chris swallows. “How are you so sure I’ll be happy here? I spent a lot of time on Earth studying, working, and not too much else. I don’t even know what I would do with myself here.”

Michael simply chuckles in response.

“Christopher, this is the Good Place. I know everything about you and have designed it to match your deepest desires. The people here will be your new family. Trust me. You just have to sit back and relax.”

Chris tenses instead; being told to relax was never a good sign.

* * *

They walk side by side in silence through cobblestone paved streets to the east side of town. The first thing Chris sees at the end of the path is an obnoxiously large mansion with a narrow white-specked path, sitting pristine in the middle of a perfectly manicured lawn. Chris can almost see the sprinklers rising at periodic intervals and the tented garden parties.

“Is that -?”

“No, that isn’t quite your style. Aha, here we are.” Michael turns around the corner and stops in front of a townhouse. The side labeled with 2 is the left side, filled in with solid red dusty bricks. There’s a patch of bay windows at the top, and French doors at the entrance. It’s mature, modest, yet grand, Chris thinks to himself. Then his eyes are caught on the label 1 and his head goes dizzy.

His neighbouring unit is clearly made from the same material, but with bursts of colour and personality that makes Chris feel slightly nauseous being so close to. It seems to drown out his simple household with its bright red door, baby blue roof, and dear god yellow tilework. The windows are wide open on the second floor with curtains flying out, and Chris can somehow smell childhood innocence and rays of _sunshine_ through them.

"Please tell me I’m in unit 2 Michael.” Chris croaks out. The style clash is mortifying him from outside the steps and he does not want to imagine what’s inside.

Michael smiles at him, all bright teeth and practically giddy. “Indeed, but your neighbour is your soulmate so do turn that frown upside down, he’s been really excited for you to get here.”

Soulmate? What does he mean by soulmate? Chris considers himself practical before romantic, and in that sense, soulmates are utterly irrational. Having one perfect person meant for someone else in a world of billions doesn’t make logical sense. If anything, it should be a many to many mapping to widen the net cast, to improve one’s chances of meeting that special someone. There’s no way that’s real, and yet – he’s standing in the Good Place.

The door bursts open in their faces before Michael’s hand even reaches the doorbell.

“DUSTIN?”

Dustin Moskovitz beams at him; a bit too upbeat for a fellow dead friend who is supposed to be his soulmate.

His, Christopher Hughes’ soulmate. Soul, mate.

“Hey Chris, what are you _doing_ here? Wait, Michael you said you would bring my soulmate as soon as they got settled but you brought Chris? Is this a dream? There’s no way we died at the same time on Earth, but I’m so glad you’re here!” Dustin exclaims, thoughts veering off to a place Chris wasn’t yet ready for. His mind was still buzzing around the word soulmate, but Dustin brings up another good point. They died, together? He tries to weakly focus to the moment of his untimely demise but comes up blank, feeling only static where his normally impeccable memory sat. Probably for the best, Chris wasn’t sure if he was ready for the answer.

“As promised, Dustin, this is your soulmate Chris. I believe you already are well acquainted. I haven’t explained the soulmate principle in too much detail here, but it is quite a foolproof algorithm.” Michael begins to explain, deciding to answer Dustin instead of focusing on Chris’ gaping face.

“But – there must be a mistake. Dustin – he’s not gay, a-are you?” Chris stutters. He isn’t sure if he was asking Michael or Dustin at this point.

Dustin pouts. “You never listen to me do you Chris, even after all we’ve been through! I swear I told you that night with the crazy bartender and lifetime ban that I was over women and that maybe men are slightly less crazy and I should give that a go and you told me go for it?”

Chris flatlines, he swears to god. “You obviously said that as a joke! You still dated more girls after that! You were so wasted, we both were – don’t tell me you changed your sexuality on a whim from a forgettable night out.”

Dustin sighs in response. “Yeah girls are cute but so are guys. I don’t know, I think I’m still trying to figure it out. Maybe Michael here has figured it out for me.”

Dustin always knew how to get under Chris’s skin, and it was always endearing until this very moment. Chris didn’t know how Dustin could have just said these sentences so damn _casually_ as if it is just that easy, like being soulmates in the goddamn afterlife is just a sign from the universe of his innate hidden sexuality after all these years. It feels like a slap in the face, if all this time, his soulmate had been staring Chris right in the face just dressed as a straight male in disguise apparently.

But that thought barely makes a scratch in Chris’s brain. After all, this is Dustin and the universe always loved playing cruel jokes on him. Like that time Mark had deadpanned in front of a press conference to say that indeed he was taking the data breach very seriously and hasn’t slept in 70 hours and left Chris to interject and say no – Facebook employees were very much encouraged to sleep while holding down the fort. Or when his mother had made him a dating profile (it wasn’t half bad) which got way too many interested incoming messages and he had to politely tell her that his free hours were reserved for keeping his sanity not for sweet talking ten strangers a week.

“Soulmates aren’t necessarily romantic or sexual in nature. It could be spiritual, platonic, it’s a connection your essences have to each other that transcends time. And it will take time to get to know your soulmate completely.” Michael patiently explains gesturing to the space between the two of them. “Please don’t take this as a blanket statement on your sexuality.” He adds as an afterthought.

Chris exhales in relief, taking that as the explanation he was waiting for. Dustin on the other hand, purses his lips in thought.

“Thank you, Michael. Orientation is at 4?” Chris asks. He hopes his voice doesn’t betray him how much he needed the architect to just leave already so he could collect his thoughts. It’s been a lot, dying, waking up after death – but the strangest had to be what was happening right now with him and Dustin.

“Yes, we’ll be all set up at 4 in the courtyard. I will leave you non-lovebirds to it then.” Michael says as he walks back down the stairs and towards central neighbourhood.

As he does, Dustin grabbed Chris’s wrist, catching him before the blond could follow suit.

“What Michael said, about us being soulmates… that really bothers you doesn’t it?” Dustin murmurs. It takes Chris by surprise; he’s used to a louder, more joyful voice, so he knows Dustin is serious.

“It’s just, you know me. My life, what remained of it.” Chris starts and turns to face Dustin. He could see past Dustin’s hair into the hallway of his home, could make out some painting frames, and an eclectic light. “I never really had too much time to myself and now that I guess I do; I was hoping for a steady relationship of sorts. It’s not that I don’t think we’re connected, obviously we’re good friends and nothing will change that, evidently not even death.”

Chris’ words surprise even himself. It seems that he was on board with the dying thing real fast.

Dustin nods and his lips slowly curls up in one of his signature smiles. Chris notes how fondly he had missed that.

“That’s alright. I don’t ever want you to feel uncomfortable Chris. I’m sorry I’m not who you were looking for.” Dustin replies with a shrug, and it soothes Chris like nothing else.

“Thanks Dustin. I’ll come by at 4?”

“Sounds like a plan!”

* * *

The courtyard is right in the middle of the neighbourhood, with rows of neat white chairs and a stage. Michael is there next to a large blank screen wearing a different bowtie this time. He looks jittery, but in a good way, the kind you feel before tackling on a challenge you’re ready to crush.

Chris and Dustin wiggles into one of the further back rows next to each other. Dustin sinks into his, though Chris wasn’t sure how, given how hard they were.

“I don’t know why there’s no phones around here. What are we supposed to do when waiting?”

“Enjoy the view? Think to yourself? People watch? Maybe we’ll see a few of our neighbours, make some friends. We have all the time in the world, don’t we?” Chris gently responds. He tries to see if he knew anyone, heart heavy as the chances were probably slim to none - when he sees them.

It’s like the air in his lungs just suddenly vanishes and he couldn’t breathe. Maybe he’s dreaming and thinking of people he knows from his life and that’s what is making Chris hallucinate. He reaches over to his left, taps Dustin’s hand weakly, and points towards one of the further up rows on the right.

“Dustin, tell me you don’t see what I see.” Chris pleads hoarsely. To confirm, he turns his eyes away and then back to where they were. It’s still the same.

“What do you mean? What am I – oh, OH, it’s – but that’d mean? Chris?”

Chris groans to himself. It wasn’t his problem anymore, but he couldn’t imagine the PR disaster back on Earth right now when it seems that _all four_ of Facebook’s co-founders died in the span of who knows what – too damn short. Because he’s staring at Mark talking to Eduardo for the first time in months.

On the bright side, they didn’t seem to be killing each other (not that they could anyway, Chris reminded himself, because – yes, they were all already dead).


	2. Overdue Reunion

Eduardo is having a bad day.

First, he’s dead. He somehow managed to die on Earth before he even turned 30 and ended up in this weird version of heaven. Second, he can’t seem to remember when or how it happened. It wasn’t that he was curious as to what cruel fate he inevitably fell into, but having this gaping hole in his head just did not sit right in his stomach. Third, what Eduardo could last remember is that he was in the midst of closing a huge deal which – well, who knew what would happen to it (did happen to it, probably already dead in the water). There goes months of late nights and anxiety - worthless.

When Michael explains the Good Place to Eduardo, Eduardo must admit he was maybe 60% mentally there, 40% not, mostly panicking over the first sentence (so you’re dead more or less) and reeling over what that implicated. But Eduardo is a gentleman, one well-versed in a poker face at least in uncomfortable situations, and he’s keen on at least getting all the facts straight and sleeping on it. That’s his action plan anyway, because people always said to sleep on large decisions so the same logic should apply to large life events, even those outside his control. That’s for after Michael shows him around to his home, hopefully with a bed more comfortable than the one he never had time to upgrade in Singapore.

When they stop in front of a large mansion, Eduardo takes a pause and makes a mental note to upgrade his bad day. Heaven is heaven, and while this was outrageously lavish, Eduardo is not going to start heaven off by questioning the architect who supposedly knew everything about him.

“Given how large your home is, we thought it would be best if you would share the space with your soulmate. Of course, there are plenty of rooms to go around if you require some space at first.” Michael trails off as they approach the estate doors. Eduardo tilts his head.

“Soulmate?”

“Oh yes, everyone in the Good Place is paired to a soulmate in the afterlife. The algorithm has determined that you two are the most compatible souls to go through this journey together. Although in your case – “

Michael does not get to finish. The doors swing open unexpectedly and the two of them turn simultaneously to look at the source.

“I thought I heard some noise.” The voice sounds familiar, cheeky, matter of fact.

Eduardo closes his eyes and raises two knuckles to his forehead in exasperation. “Oh, you’ve got to be forking kidding me.”

* * *

After getting over the fact that indeed, swearing is automatically censored in the Good Place (though it felt more like the Bad Place in Eduardo’s book - given how much he wanted to swear right now and only being able to hear it translate correctly in his head), it was time to forsake his nap and toggle the bad day meter down by the shape of one Mark Zuckerberg.

The universe is evidently a big fan of irony.

When on Earth, all he’d wanted was Mark’s attention. So of course, Eduardo only receives it in the afterlife backed up by an algorithm apparently so ironclad it puts Facebook’s to shame. The fact that he and Mark were so called soulmates does not surprise Eduardo. If anything, it only affirms a fact he’s known for a long time and failed to successfully bury. It would explain how Eduardo’s always felt like a satellite, drawn into Mark’s orbit without rhyme or reason. It explains how when that pull had dissipated (cut in half, Eduardo reminds himself, separated by his signature on documents he didn’t read and the crack of Mark’s laptop), it never felt like a clean break. Eduardo had felt bitter, hollow, raw - all the emotions of a spurned lover who no longer knew where to go home to. The confirmation that this was all at least fated makes Eduardo feel ever so slightly better. He couldn’t help the silent pining, couldn’t help his weakness, couldn’t help running away when it all went south.

And yet, he was never going to quite get away from Mark, not even when he ran halfway around the world only to see him again in death.

Michael leaves the two of them alone with a sheepish smile, which makes Eduardo pretty certain the architect fled right away on purpose. If he knew that this was a hellfire combination waiting to crack, he’d want out too. The news of his and Mark’s estranged friendship was common knowledge on Earth already, so of course an all-knowing _angel_ would be aware of just how fucking awkward this was on all levels.

That still left the fact that Eduardo is standing on the other side of the door now, feet glued to the faint blue welcome mat. Mark hasn’t yet said anything either, unmoving. It feels like a stand-off, one Eduardo was familiar with and one that brings flickers of utter dread to his gut. Could he sue Mark again to get rid of it again? Are there courts of law in eternal paradise?

“Are you going to come in or what?” Mark breaks the silence, his voice cutting through the air straight into Eduardo.

“Uhm, yes.” What a stupid response, and he wants to berate himself endlessly. Because Eduardo would be lying if he said he didn’t think about meeting Mark again. What he would say, how he would confront him if it was unavoidable, how he’d find the truth ( _Mark’s_ truth) without the lawyers all around him framing his hurt in the way to receive maximum sympathy and profit. Eduardo has thought through it all, and yet in that second his mind was wiped clean.

Nothing has changed; Mark still had this unexplainable grasp on him, like a phantom limb or a lingering instinct. When Eduardo looks at Mark, he still feels like not quite an adult on the precipice of something grand, except now with the hindsight of knowing how quickly and silently grand things can fall apart.

In front of Mark, Eduardo only collapses and regresses, like collateral damage.

And it hurts like a bitch, even without his heart’s yearning for something he’s sure Mark does not know and could not give.

But he knows not to wear his heart on his sleeve anymore. There’s nothing to break, only miles of pristine time between them. Eduardo removes his shoes and chooses to step inside.

The mansion is beautiful, complete with a spiral staircase and a light-shimmering chandelier adorning the entryway, full of muted beiges, off-whites, and rose gold. Extravagant, captivating, _overkill_. In the middle of it all, Mark and his gray hoodie and loose jeans stands out like a guest who didn’t read the dress code to a black-tie ball. The sight was something Eduardo has not thought would come to pass again after Facebook blew up and Mark had to actually face responsibilities, press conferences, the _judgmental public._

“I don’t know why you’re here.” Mark interrupts his thoughts.

“Probably for the same reason you’re here. Death, an algorithm, and probably some cruel joke.” Eduardo retorts easily, instinctually. It’s the most they’ve spoken in possibly years. Eduardo mentally pats himself on the back for the clever response. Petty, yes, but worth the weak glare Mark gives him in return. He somehow relishes in the feeling of pushing Mark’s buttons, a skill that’s long outlived its usefulness and one he’s forgotten he had.

“No, I know what Michael said. But you shouldn’t be here. You should be screaming and kicking and running the hell away from me right now.” Mark gathers his hands in his hoodie pockets and shrugs his shoulders as if to say _look at me isn’t this self-explanatory?_

Eduardo is taken back. “Do you want me to run away from you?”

Yes, he had sued Mark, walked out that day and made a series of choices that all but ensured that he would never have to come back. But it was all jumbled up in legal documents and self-preservation, caught up in feelings of shame and anguish that Eduardo did not want to revisit. It would be easier to let the story end where it did, bury the complicated emotions that was Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg. He got what he asked for, and Mark had written Eduardo out of the story long ago.

He did not fucking run away damn it. That implied defeat, and Eduardo _won the lawsuit._ How is that fair? He was not scared of Mark; he walked away because that’s what civilized people did. He _moved on._

“No.” Mark replies briskly, as if that settled the matter.

They could be civil, couldn’t they? No screaming and shouting necessary. Yes, by not talking about anything that would set the oxygen around them to flame. It isn’t like he has the energy for this anyway, so for now, Eduardo decides that he’s more than happy to keep the peace. The soulmate part of the conversation for example, laid suffocating in a corner, where it couldn’t touch either of them.

“Okay.” He drops it with relief. “Are you going to show me to my room or something? How do you even get things around here? There was this book I never finished back in Singapore…” Eduardo continues instead, his words initially light-hearted but trails off when he notices the blank look on Mark’s face turn into a slight grimace.

“Well about getting things, hey Janet?”

Janet?

A bright bing sound and a “hi there” comes out of nowhere accompanied by a female brunette in an old-school white and purple flight attendant-esque dress. Her smile is all beaming and her pose all happy-to-serve.

“This must be… Janet?” Eduardo squeaks.

Mark rolls his eyes. “Yes, Janet’s how you can get things around here. You kind of summon her in and out to do whatever you want.”

“Whatever I want?”

Janet nods and smiles, all kind and cheery in a way that seems both genuine and off at the same time. “Correct. I run the neighbourhood and I know everything there is to know in the universe. Simply ask me for anything and I will make it happen as long as my protocol allows.”

Eduardo’s head swirls at this. “What do you mean by anything?”

There’s a huff from Mark. “Literally anything, she’s amazing. Facebook doesn’t even hold a light to her.”

Of course, Mark would compare an all-knowing, all-able being to Facebook. Like that’s even fair to do.

“Like, Janet can you bring me a copy of _Freakonomics_?” Eduardo asks curiously. He holds out both hands flat in front of him, as if expecting a book to plop right on top.

Said book appears in Janet’s hand and she subsequently places it precisely in Eduardo’s outstretched hands. “Here you go.”

“Wow. What about some uh, hair gel?”

That too, appears instantaneously and is passed over to Eduardo. Mark stands off to the side, looking slightly amused as Eduardo cycles through a suit, some magazines, a few more suits, and a picture of his family.

“That’s not all she can do. Watch this. Janet, tell me what place the Winklevoss twins finished in during the 2008 Summer Olympics?” Mark asks in a tone that frankly can only be described as smug.

“Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss competed in Rowing where they came in 6th place overall.” Janet states cheerfully.

“Does it have to be common knowledge? Or…” Eduardo mumbles, mostly to himself. The possibilities were endless. If Janet knew everything, literally everything, then –

“No. Janet, tell me how many texts Christy sent Eduardo the day he broke up with her.”

“47 texts sent with 4 in her draft folder.” Janet replies again happily. Janet is a very happy being.

Eduardo doesn’t miss a beat.

“Did Mark really oversleep that Alpha Epsilon Pi party he promised he’d go to? Uhm, 2003 I think. One after Caribbean night.”

“ _That’s_ what you choose to ask?” Mark breaths sourly, and Eduardo thinks he almost sounds embarrassed.

“He did not, he was coding in his room.” Janet’s voice is the most reaffirming sound in the world.

Eduardo chuckles low and throaty, and it almost feels like old times. When Mark was his best friend, when they played games and made fun of each other in that old Kirkland suite. When he’d wait outside their suite, grab entire pizza boxes for late nights, bicker over bedtime when they both knew Eduardo would fall asleep on his chair watching Mark code. That all felt so far away. It was a simpler time, and nothing is quite simple now anymore. It’s as if these memories were cleansing the hurtful parts, but he wouldn’t put it past Mark to bring them up on purpose to make Eduardo forget that. Water under the bridge, wash away the past; they could do that after death couldn’t they?

_This could be Mark’s olive branch._

“I don’t know why you ever liked those parties Wardo.” Mark huffs.

Eduardo freezes. The nickname had rolled off Mark’s tongue too easily, too eerily natural. And yet, it feels so foreign, the name which had stuck to his skin since Harvard and could refused to be scrubbed off. It’s stupid, a badge that Mark no longer has the right to wear, so Eduardo tears it off.

“ _Don’t_ call me that.” He hisses, surprising even himself with how dark his voice sounds. Eduardo believes he even catches a glimpse of Mark’s blue eyes flashing with shock, and he almost apologizes out of reflex, but the pain in his eyes quickly revert away.

“Okay.” Mark says.

It’s so easy. I need the algorithm – okay. I need the money – okay. I need you here – okay. If it really is so easy, maybe they wouldn’t be here right now, standing uncomfortable at an impasse with too much history to just move on. Just one of many things that was too little too late.

“So, want to show me around?” Eduardo switches the topic. “Not that there’s anything to unpack or anything, but I want to settle in.”

Mark purses his lips, in a way that made Eduardo suspicious. It isn’t like Mark to hesitate.

“There’s – a master bedroom. Just the one. I was going to take one of the guest suites – I wasn’t sure if, you uh, I’m not sure of anything right now.” Mark admits as he moves towards the staircase, his steps lingering with heavy breaks.

Eduardo stops and thinks to himself, each of Mark’s stumbles and careful maneuvers mirroring his own qualms, and then laughs – light and ironic. “We’re not sharing a room Mark.” Eduardo’s voice is a promise; one that tries to sound solid, but it comes across desperate.

Mark nods. “I know, I’ll show you to the master – “

“No, you can have it. You were here first. I don’t mind.” Eduardo cuts in. He’s unsure if he’s trying to be polite or trying to prevent Mark from _winning_ (but he’s not sure what game they’re even playing).

Mark doesn’t argue; Eduardo doesn’t know if he wanted him to.

* * *

In between settling in and making his way to the orientation, Eduardo learns a few things.

One, Mark still types the same way he used to at Harvard. He’s not sure why Mark is still typing or what he’s typing, but he’s pretty sure the first thing he asked Janet for was a laptop in a world that requires no Internet or Facebook. The only two guest suites that were big enough for Eduardo to call home shared a wall with Mark, and it feels strangely intimate in a world where they’ve never actually lived so close.

Two, Mark doesn’t seem to care about the fact that he’s Eduardo’s soulmate. Well, he doesn’t care enough to bring it up, so it lifts this pressure off Eduardo to do it himself because he doesn’t want to. He wants to put it off forever if he can, in a world where forever is a given.

Because what would be the point in talking about it? Eduardo could run and run and the world could still tug on a soft red string and whirl him back into Mark’s gravity. Eduardo isn’t even mad about it; he’s just resigned. The feelings he’s had for Mark faintly aches in response, like a headache that recrudesces when you remember it’s there. Seeing Mark now is hard, harder than _suing him_ and buying that one-way ticket to Singapore, because it threatens to unravel the walls he built trying to smother Mark back down. Plus, Mark doesn’t do him the favour of validating his feelings one way or another, so that at least softens the blow of trying to navigate tenderness and anger all at once when Eduardo is honestly happy just to settle for neutral. It’s easier, to put a cap on something as complicated as him and Mark and pretend they aren’t a forgotten time capsule ticking down to its time.

Three, Mark is _softer_ (Eduardo can’t seem to pinpoint the right word). It’s not unexpected, given their drift and how people do grow up one day past their stupid actions in college. There are little things – the way he sits, how his words come across ever so slightly more reserved (Eduardo wondered if it was because of maturity, or Chris, or dancing around Eduardo given their history – maybe all three), the faint dimness in his blue eyes when Eduardo brings up Facebook. There’s a hole in the way Mark moves, like something is missing, like a swollen secret he’s trying to keep (and Eduardo hates how he could tell, even after everything how Mark is ingrained into his muscle memory and his living daydreams).

Eduardo can’t shake the feeling, not when they take a seat at orientation underneath fluffy clouds and sprawled across the most perfect lawn, not when Michael goes through their great accomplishments, not even at _“new beginnings”_ (something he knew in his heart of hearts he craved and could not find, not even here).

“Mark! Wardo!” The feeling unravels at the bright, easy voice – the nickname slipstreaming through his ears and finding home.

“Dustin?” He whips around and sees Dustin and Chris coming into his view, the four of them so close (he can reach out and _touch them)_ after so long that it feels surreal. In the Good Place, the catalyst for them being here, reuniting – it hits Eduardo like a ton of nostalgia-laden bricks. In that moment, Eduardo is genuinely glad to be around them again, and he realizes how it took _death_ for them to be granted this second chance – the leap none of them took back in life.

With a side glance, Eduardo notices that Mark’s eyes shine a bit brighter as he moves his hands out of his pockets, lips curling into an almost knowing smile. Did Mark know about Chris and Dustin? Does he know more than he’s letting on? Eduardo ponders and thinks he isn’t going to like the answer.

But in that moment, Eduardo thinks that with the four of them, it’ll be okay.


	3. Some People Never Learn

Mark knew it was only a matter of time.

Since he came face to face with Eduardo again, Mark silently counted down the minutes until their inevitable blow-up. It wasn’t unexpected, given Eduardo’s coldness towards him during the depositions, and how curt their words were at the few events after when they crossed paths. Mark knew when he was being avoided, which was fine, because Eduardo needed time, and so did he. Then they got time, time that ended up slipping away from them both when Eduardo moved to Singapore and didn’t say a word.

Now all they have is time.

Mark had expected Eduardo to be angry, to demand to live elsewhere when they met again in the large mansion assigned to them. But he had danced around the issue and treated Mark like he wasn’t _Mark_. It was a futile front, but he wasn’t going to push it right now. There was too much history, too much unspoken between them to just pretend nothing never happened. They were not a shadow of their former selves - more like a base with a fresh, solid coat of paint covering the scars criss-crossed underneath.

So, Mark is not surprised when Eduardo storms out of the gala in the middle (now end) of his speech. Instead, he sinks his head down and tries to avoid Chris’ seething glare and Dustin’s gaping mouth before dropping the mic and following suit out the door.

Still, he wishes they could have pulled off one peaceful day; it isn’t even 10pm yet.

(and he does not give a damn about the 300 odd something guests stranded in their living room, surely out of ideas on what to do when both party hosts leave their own home).

* * *

Having only lived in the neighbourhood for less than 12 hours, Mark really doesn’t know where he’s going or if he would find Eduardo there. He only knows that he couldn’t stay, not after those personal attacks and his friends looking at him like he just blew his chance. It’s presumptuous of them to assume that Mark has just been biding his time to _apologize._ (He has been, yes, but he was still crafting the words because he didn’t want them to come out in a jumbled mess without careful organization, like well, exactly what just happened. He didn’t want to trivialize a complicated matter, and that gala was pretty much the definition of trivializing a complicated matter.)

Contrary to popular belief, Mark Zuckerberg is not heartless. He is not a robot, not particularly cruel, and not remotely close to a mastermind. That was all because he was a kid who made mistakes when thrust into a world he had no experience navigating. Mark is good at coding, at seeing and executing a brilliant idea, at seeing past bullshit. He is not good at fundraising, at giving speeches about himself, at avoiding tunnel vision when the prize laid waiting at the end of the path (he’s hard pressed to find anyone who is). He’s grown, because Facebook forced him to, but the base blueprint of Mark Zuckerberg was still the same. Still blunt, stubborn, practical – thinks of feelings a bit too late and unable to convey them the right way.

Mark makes his way to the courtyard, where just hours ago there was a semblance of normality. The four of them had talked, _really talked,_ for the first time in ages, without a trace of bitterness apart from the casual joke about their untimely deaths. Dustin had pulled them into a crushing group hug, and Mark realized then how long it’s been since he’s been touched. Chris had suggested they eat dinner together at the gala, catch up more, which didn’t end up happening. Maybe Chris and Dustin were chewing on those sliders right now, talking about how Mark fucked it up again. No one mentioned the word soulmate.

The chairs were all gone, and there was no Eduardo in sight. Mark briefly contemplates calling Janet up to find out his whereabouts, but it feels oddly like cheating if he does not want to be found. The thought prickles Mark’s heart, ever so slightly, so he doesn’t entertain it further.

The events of earlier in the night burns in Mark’s brain; if they could they’d leave scorch marks and bruises. He remembers bumbling over the statements, catching Chris’ eye, and not being able to read his PR genius’ damn mind (or lips, he’s fairly sure Chris had tried to mouth some kind of hasty excuse to just get off the podium, usually a last ditch resort). Usually he had at least a few hours before making a fool of himself. Going unprepared was something his PR team was aware would turn out disastrously, because it’s happened before. There’s a “pre-stage” checklist that burst into life and materialized solely due to Mark’s past mistakes, and he inwardly cringed every time they ran through it.

Mark groans out loud as he mindlessly shuffles through the neighbourhood streets. He glimpses past stores that have long closed for the night, chases shadows underneath flickering firefly yellow lamplights. It was by all accounts, deserted which makes sense given the entire neighbourhood population was likely still at the gala. The gala, where people celebrated his accomplishments and the aftermath of Facebook, where he had tried and failed to make it less about him for once because Facebook had grown more than that. But people (including himself) liked to dwell on the past - on the sore spots of reconciliation that never happened and wouldn’t happen until both he and Eduardo got over themselves. To Mark it was simple; it didn’t matter that Eduardo wasn’t there for some of these moments, but that he helped make it happen. He was the one who failed at conveying that to the crowd, who was far too intrusive and shouldn’t even be giving a damn about Facebook’s story anyway.

All that is to say, Mark’s not good at this.

He continues down the grey-bricked streets, dragging his feet with a perpetual frown on his face. He’s still replaying the speech turned ambush in his head when his eyes glaze over the shape of Eduardo, hunched over on a bench out from the lake, skipping stones.

“Ditched your own party, did you?” Eduardo’s voice is dripping with sarcasm, but Mark can tell how tired they sound. Eduardo’s head is resting on his left knuckle as he flicks another rock with his right, decidedly not looking in Mark’s direction (but he didn’t need to, to know Mark was there). It skips three times, just like Mark’s heartbeat.

“It’s not my party, it’s our party, so you’re just as bad as me.” Mark retorts, stepping towards him. Eduardo makes no motion to move away, so that’s encouraging, Mark thinks. He plops down to Eduardo’s left, sinks into the space between.

There’s an empty silence that follows, and Mark isn’t sure what can fix it. He’s not good at fixing things, other than buggy code written by amateurs. Is there someone out there who knows how to fix silence? Not to say silence is a bad thing (Mark revels in silence usually), just _this one was;_ Mark feels in his bones. He’d break it but he has nothing to say, nothing that won’t make things worse. Silence is a blank slate; Mark has a non-erasable pen. The blank slate feels comforting.

“Did you mean everything you said in there?” Eduardo whispers after a long while, executing the poor silence with a whimper.

“No, not in that way.” Mark pauses, unsure if he should keep going. “You were more than just the money, you were a co-founder, you had input, I was just,” Mark mumbles and stops himself from saying the word _angry_ , because that’s not an excuse to be cruel. It didn’t matter that some nobody wanted to know how their falling apart turned to something more, that it was none of her damn business, because in the end he was the one who willed the words into reality.

“So why didn’t you say any of that? It’s not like this is a lawsuit or anything, where they can twist apart every word you say and bring up ancient evidence from the Crimson. Aren’t CEOs supposed to be courteous and respectful?” Eduardo asks, lightly ironic with a splash of bitterness (a recipe Mark knows well).

_Because being that CEO in public requires precise language Chris handcrafts. Because he doesn’t know how to voice how complicated he and Eduardo are. Because he doesn’t know what they are anymore, he hasn’t known for a long time. Because Eduardo is more than the sensational story of how they fell apart, but Mark’s blind and can only see in the shadow of the lawsuit, broadcasting how abruptly Eduardo’s reign as CFO ended. The bad outshines the good in news, always._

“Because, I was caught up in the moment, and – I didn’t think. They wanted a reconciliation story, but I didn’t have one. It wasn’t any of their business and I - that wasn’t fair to you.” Mark babbles instead, face suddenly feeling hot. It’s just as truthful, just as raw, and judging by the pained expression on Eduardo’s face, not a reaction he expects to hear.

“I know. I don’t know what I expected either. They were prying too much into things we don’t have even have answers to yet.” Eduardo replies, voice as soft as his glance - Mark notices as he turns away.

Mark realizes something in that moment – he sees the gaping valleys between their words, the way Eduardo still can’t meet his gaze but stays regardless, like he’s tethered to the bench and doesn’t want to fight to let go. He’s not the only one lost, who doesn’t want to be.

“Are you, are we, uhm… is this how it’s always going to be?” Mark calls out. He hesitantly reaches out for Eduardo’s left shoulder with one hand, pulling his body so close to Eduardo’s that he can smell the wine on his breath, can smell him before he even sees. Mark looks up; Eduardo meets him. Mark gains renewed confidence, and he sprints for the settlement.

“It’s always going to be about this, isn’t it. The bank account, the dilution, _being left behind._ I would love nothing more than to leave this behind and fly off to Singapore instead, but I don’t think flying exists here. If we’re going to make this work, we should talk about it.” (He would be wrong, flying most certainly did exist here).

Eduardo's lips breaks apart in a laugh. It isn’t pure by any means; instead it’s one of those laughs that come after a broken deal, or one of disbelief that the universe could conspire against any one person so carefully. Mark just stares, unsure what to say, certain he has broken his goddamn soulmate again.

“Oh, you think I went to Singapore to get away from you and the lawsuit?” Eduardo croaks out, still laughing. Mark shakes his hand off Eduardo’s shoulder. It’s not funny.

“I know you did.” Mark says, solemn like a confession.

“Shirt, not everything has to be about you Mark.” He turns away, voice dropping to a low hiss which convinces Mark that he’s a _liar._

“It’s not _just_ about me, it’s about you too. Did you not want to talk about it?” Mark raises his voice in retort. He’s the one still working on an apology but now he doesn’t want to give it, or even think about it when he can’t even tell what Eduardo’s still mad about. He knows what _he’s_ mad about – how Eduardo didn’t listen, how he wasn’t there, _I was your only friend._

Eduardo looks up and turns his head to meet Mark again. His expression slaps Mark across the face because the anger is all gone, and only the ghost of hurt remains. It explains a lot to Mark, the avoidance, the lashing out, the walking away. Eduardo must think it’s better than the alternative, the possibility of moving past this.

“Not tonight...not, for a while probably.”

“I’ll wait.” Mark immediately answers, to a question that was not asked.

Eduardo doesn’t smile back at him reassuringly the way Mark had somehow expected. Instead, he sighs.

“Were you going to apologize? Dustin said you were.”

That must be what Dustin was trying to say before Eduardo left, in an attempt to turn the tide. It’s enough to make Mark hesitate, because he wants to say _yes_ but it’s too soon. It’s best to not have expectations isn’t it, now that he isn’t sure where they’re going, what unspoken words will remain so, lost in a void he cannot see.

“I didn’t tell Dustin that.” He settles for instead (it’s not a lie) and watches as the crestfallen air from around Eduardo drain.

Eduardo blinks at him and then nods to himself, in the way he used to when Mark talked about his code back at Harvard, in the way that reassured Mark even though he was fairly certain Eduardo had no idea what he was rambling on about.

“That’s what I told him.” He says. “I said if Mark was going to do such a thing, he would’ve never told you he was doing it and he wouldn’t have apologized for the right thing. So when she called you out in the crowd – well, I knew it wasn’t true.”

Mark frowns as the words sink in. “What do you mean I wouldn’t have apologized for the right thing? Are there more than one thing to apologize for?”

Eduardo smiles at Mark like he’s reminiscing, chuckling as he murmurs: “If I told you how to do it, it would defeat the purpose no?”

Mark shreds the remnants of his apology letter in his mind and grabs Eduardo by the arm, ignoring the sharp protest from the other man as he pulls Eduardo to his feet.

“Don’t be cryptic with me. You’re mad at me. I’m also mad at you, but I get why you’re mad at me more. This doesn’t count as an apology by the way, I’m just saying – I can’t read your mind, and I don’t know all the different ways we hurt each other. So it has to be me and you, without the lawyers, without Dustin and Chris. If you want me to do it right, I’m going to need your help, w-when you’re ready.” Mark’s sure to steady his voice the way he does right before he calms an investor-minded crowd, but he feels his lips tremble when he blinks up at Eduardo’s face.

“Are you seriously asking me for help on how to say sorry to me?” Eduardo asks wryly, but it isn’t without humour so Mark counts that as a plus.

“Is that so bad? It’s not like I’m telling you to write the thing for me.” Mark scoffs.

“I guess not, you always did need help on the simple things.” Eduardo says after the slightest of pauses. “Let’s go home.”

Eduardo doesn’t shake Mark’s hand off, and that feels like the biggest victory of the night, that they can go on pretending for a while longer.

* * *

_The lights were too bright, the crowd too fancily dressed, his damn notecards too slippery, and his fingers too sweaty to grasp them tight._

_Chris tilts his chin and gestures through his eyebrows towards the podium and Mark just wants to die even though that isn’t possible. Michael had asked him to host and speak for a bit because of the size of the mansion, not because he had some huge feature push coming up that he could hinge on. All of those engagements he’s ever had on Earth, there was a cause - one charity or another where he could relate Facebook’s mission, cut some ribbons, hold up a cheque. Talking about himself? Mark had rejected biographies for this very reason; the very thought made him squirm._

_Chris didn’t seem upset when Mark asked him to come up with something last minute sheepishly. After all, who would want to spend time in heaven obeying not-their-boss-anymore’s orders? But Chris takes it all in stride and promised to be back with some quick talking points in an hour and seemed almost relieved if Mark was to be honest. Though, looking at the notes in front of him, he had to admit it may not be the PR head’s best work._

_“Hi everyone. I’m Mark Zuckerberg. You may know me, or you probably know me, as one of the founders of Facebook. The others are well, for better or for worse also here with me – Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and… Eduardo Saverin.” Mark is already hitting himself over the head with it, how often has he been able to say, much less introduce Eduardo in a public place? The words still feel foreign on his tongue._

_"I’m not sure what I’m supposed to really say here, uh. You’re all obviously extraordinary people because you’re here. I don’t necessarily feel like I’m the best representation of the best of you in this room, but I’m excited to connect with you all over the next few whiles – the old-fashioned way.” Some chuckles at the joke, thank god._

_“It’s baffling being here and seeing all the possibilities that were impossibilities on Earth, so I’m going to be playing around with those too like the rest of you. It can only be a good thing, to never stop being curious and creative. This is a new beginning, in a much bigger sandbox, and I’m sure we’ll all do great things.” Mark swallows, heart pounding over the words “new beginning”. Dustin gives him two thumbs up, Chris is making a gesture to wrap up the fluff speech, and Eduardo’s eyes are bright towards him under the chandelier crystals._

_There’s a hand raised in the audience, a short woman with fierce eyes and an all too large smile with teeth. Mark coughs before nodding in her direction – “yes?”_

_"I’m sorry to intrude, but since you spoke of new beginnings, I just wanted to ask how you and Eduardo made up? We were told you two were soulmates which is so inspiring and well, me and my soulmate here got into a pretty big fight when we met today. I wanted to ask you what your secret was to your relationship, after a falling out and lawsuit like that, not saying we’ll get to that point hopefully!” She circles her wrists a couple of times motioning towards the dark brunette beside her, presumably the soulmate in question._

_"Uhm, that’s really not something I’d like to talk about here.” Mark stammers heatedly, because to be honest he’s just stalling for time. Michael did not mention a Q &A session. Eduardo stares at him with wide open eyes, yelling get-the-fuck-out-of-this at him through telepathy they’ve never developed._

_"Oh I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to air your dirty laundry here, just a general timeline? Like who reached out first and apologized? I told Jeanette here that you definitely apologized first but – “ The woman named Jeanette frowns in response._

_“And I told you it wouldn’t have mattered who apologized first as long as they did! Why are you so curious about that anyway?” Jeanette huffs._

_Everyone’s quiet for a moment before some chatter disperses among the crowd. Mark hears some things he wishes he hadn’t: poking into their relationship, calling Mark an asshole (ashhole), questioning Eduardo’s motivation for the lawsuit. It irked Mark, pointedly and achingly. Who said all people in heaven were absolute darlings were wrong; everyone had a dark side, he should be the poster child._

_“I- I mean, I don’t have a timeline. We’re still working on that.” Mark half yells instead. He’s not sure why he raised his voice, but when the mumblings cease, he realizes what he was going for - authority. Chris’ eyes are saucers looking his way, and Mark can almost sense how long his friend has been holding his breath._

_“Oh, of course. Any good soulmate relationship requires continual work. I’m sure you two talked for a long time to get to where you are now.” Her voice is kind and nonchalant, almost with an air of admiralty, yet Mark can’t help but feel defensive. There’s a reason, and that reason is simple._

_"We haven’t talked. We met here. There’s no fairy-tale reunion story here because we’re talking to each other for the first time in years okay?” His words fall out like a collapsing science fair project, wobbly and full of dissipating hope. He tries to not look at Eduardo, tries to not focus on his paling visage, tries to block out the discomfort in his gut. Just when they were starting out in an okay place – it became time to examine their flaws, point fingers, figure out a damn apology plan. The woman has the audacity to tilt her head, as if waiting for a continuation, an elaboration._

_“We have a lot of history. Like I said, we’re still figuring it out.” Mark decides to appease, lamely, terribly._

_“I get it, CEOs and CFOs do that kind of thing, they figure things out together don’t they?” Again, that irritating, cherry voice. Why is she still talking?_

_“He’s not my CFO. He just gave the start-up money and helped us in the beginning. He hasn’t been part of Facebook in years.” Mark bites out before he even thinks twice, because it’s true. Eduardo hasn’t been his CFO in how long? But the tone was uncalled for, the words uncalled for; Mark was sure he was over it, but even he could hear the bark and bitterness in his retort, regret too slow to catch up._

_“What the hell Mark?” It’s Dustin, surprisingly, yelling with a type of fierceness Mark had forgotten Dustin was capable of._

_In that moment, there is silence. There’s Dustin still angrily staring him down, Chris looking like he’s about to do the same, and –_

_Eduardo doesn’t say anything, doesn’t look at him, just turns around and starts to walk away. Dustin’s scrambling after him, panting, making movements with his hands and saying things Mark can’t hear but Eduardo’s shaking him off with a gentleness that evaporates as he leaves the mansion._

_All at once, Mark feels something inside him shatter akin to his laptop all those years ago, the computer power and physical keys scattering out of touch with each other, falling in misaligned pieces. He’s not a robot, so it must be his heart._

_Oh._


	4. Landing, Unraveling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is honestly the most I've written in a while, so at least there's one bright side from the quarantine. Hopefully you are enjoying reading this as much as I've been enjoying writing it. 
> 
> I hope you are all staying safe out there!

This is his second day in heaven (sorry, the Good Place, Janet always reminds him), and Dustin is ticked off. For one, his soulmate has been blowing him off since he got here, which by his book isn’t really a great way to start off. Especially since that soulmate was Chris Hughes, who spent most of yesterday stressing over Mark and Eduardo affairs like death forbids a vacation or something. It’s nothing new, but it also hasn’t been their normal in years, so the regression hits Dustin by surprise. He expected it from Eduardo, falling into old habits with Mark the way he’s so prone to do (if death doesn’t incentivize forgiveness then what will?), but not from Chris. Maybe Chris just really missed babysitting after someone now that he was effectively out of a job.

The other thing was that as easily as the four of them came together, they fell apart. After last night’s gala gone wrong, Dustin was left in the dark. After all, everyone had, after some confusion and poor recovery efforts on Michael’s part, left the mansion and gone home, even before Mark and Eduardo returned. It left an air of disappointment, though not one that anyone seemed too overly concerned about, except maybe Chris, who looked like he might as well tape permanent frown lines to his forehead. And so, Dustin went home next door with nothing more than meek _good night_ , starkly reminded that despite the happy gathering that same afternoon, beneath the surface only laid more cobwebs and ghosts. (Even that, he was not privy to, and did he want to be?)

But if he had to pick, the worst thing was that today they were scheduled to go _flying_ and he’s the only person who seems to be at all interested. In the courtyard, Janet has set up a trampoline that was to be the launch pad for their journey into the sky. Everyone in the neighbourhood was geared up in full body flight suits and Dustin felt like he could already jump straight up into the clouds. Except, Chris wasn’t even lining up. He was frowning in the same way he would at Harvard, all absorbed in some history text or another, if a history textbook was Eduardo shoving a flight suit in Mark’s direction underneath a tree that is.

Urgh, how is he the crazy one for being psyched about flying?

“Chris, are you coming?” He tugs on Chris’ pale-yellow sleeve, attempting to tone his voice down from insanely hyped to majorly hyped.

Chris makes a hmm sound back, and absentmindedly turns his head in Dustin’s direction - which is the Chris Hughes tell-tale sign for _was not listening._ “Dustin? Wait, why’d you leave the line?”

“I want to go with youuuu, isn’t that obvious?” Dustin groans. Sometimes Chris can be so oblivious for a PR guy who’s supposed to be high-strung on his observation skills.

Chris has already turned his head away to look at, ah, Mark straining to put the blue flight suit on in public and Eduardo in bright purple, making exaggerated hand motions at Mark’s hoodie.

“Chris are you listening? Stop worrying over them, they’re not going to spontaneously combust like last night again…probably. We’ll catch up with them after! Janet said flying’s only on for a couple of hours.”

Of course, Chris makes a faraway nod in Dustin’s direction and continues to stalk the two of them from afar like the paparazzi he so loathed in life.

“Oh Dustin, I should really go see if they’re okay. I don’t know who decided that they should be soulmates, but that probably wasn’t a well thought out decision -”

“What do you mean? Of course they’re soulmates.” Dustin cuts him off, seriously. He knows the Good Place folks thought this through, because he and Chris are soulmates and that makes perfect sense to him, even if it doesn’t to Chris who seemed skeptical over the whole thing. To Dustin, it’s a clarifying, wondrous fact.

“Mark and Eduardo? You do remember their lawsuit right? And how they couldn’t even look at each other? I had to screen and rearrange Mark’s schedule afterwards for months.” Chris gawks, really looking at Dustin for the first time.

Dustin tilts his head innocently. Chris of course only remembers the bad parts, because doesn’t everyone? Maybe it was just an occupational hazard of his, and a personality hazard. Dustin on the other hand, he doesn’t take it all that seriously.

“Yeah, I do. It was ugly, but that’s not because they didn’t care for each other. If anything, it’s because they cared too much. The Winklevoss twins sued and moved on with their lives – to them it was transactional, it was about the money they lost. I don’t think Wardo sued for his money back so much as an acknowledgement that they both hurt each other. And you can’t hurt each other unless you care what the other person thinks of you. I don’t think they ever got over each other…but that’s not my place, or yours.”

There’s a thoughtful, pensive look which graces Chris’ face, a rare one. Dustin knows it well, enough to miss it.

“You’re right. They’re probably not over it, but I just keeping thinking if they wanted to sort it out, they would’ve done so a long time ago. So I wanted to, I don’t know, give them a push in the right direction? This probably isn’t good for them.”

Dustin sighs. “Chris, stop worrying and start flying instead. You can’t still be a workaholic on an eternal vacation, that’d just be too sad. No one made you their mom anyway.” Chris starts to protest when Dustin interrupts him again.

“Just let them be for a while. It takes time to be able to look at someone else differently, don’t you know?” Dustin says, because he knows. He knows that’s why the word soulmate hurts Chris to say, and why conversely it feels so natural to him. He knows that’s why Chris, on some level, still doesn’t take him seriously. He doesn’t even think he takes himself seriously sometimes.

“Yeah, okay. Let’s go flying.”

Dustin jumps in the air and scream woohoo as he leaps. “That’s a practice run for flying!” He grabs Chris by the arm and is rewarded when Chris follows naturally with no resistance into line. Janet is all flat smiles a few people ahead, explaining to each person as they geared up with goggles materialized from her hands.

“So, uh Dustin, do you remember how we died?” Chris asks as they shuffle along in line. Dustin’s smile falters a bit.

“I can’t remember anything, even the last thing I try to visualize is kind of blurry.” Dustin admits. “I’m guessing you don’t remember either?”

Chris shakes his head. “I’ve tried really hard to too, but it honestly just gives me a headache now.”

Dustin nods in response. “You know, I thought we may have all died together, otherwise how else could we end up here together? Then I figured, if we were meant to be soulmates,” Chris half-flinches at the word, but Dustin continues on, “maybe they make us wait for each other. I have no idea how it works, so I tried to ask Janet about it yesterday and she said that the neighbourhood configuration is at the discretion of the architect. It got a bit confusing because well, everyone here is so young that it probably doesn’t make sense that we all died in our 20s.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Chris chuckles, carefree and _dazzling_. Dustin’s confused; he wasn’t trying to crack a joke for once. It’s quite morbid isn’t it? Planning out a neighbourhood full of people for whom tragedy struck young. But there’s something about Chris’ laugh that’s refreshing, like a dust free counter, or the first day of Spring. Dustin chokes his heart back down his throat, because it’s been a while since he’s thought of Chris this way. Ever since Michael explained soulmates, he’s wondered if it was possible to have your soulmate reject you. Like Chris, in life he’s always wanted someone to spend his life with, and like Chris, the word soulmate sparked a kind of need that was stronger than he’d ever hoped for. So yes, it hurt to have Chris more or less say Dustin’s not who he wanted, and it hurt to have to say those words back to him affirm (for both of them) – that their friendship was stronger than some crush Dustin had been trying to forget since Harvard.

But was it wrong of him to hope that they could be more than just platonic? When heaven matches you together, it’s okay to want that ending to stick, right? Now that Chris wasn’t working all the time and they could actually spend more time together, is asking for a chance too hopeful?

“Dustin, you’ve sure thought a lot about this. How long did you end up talking to Janet anyway?” Oh, Chris is making fun of him, for _thinking too much._

“I am a very thoughtful person with well-thought out plans okay Christopher? Don’t be a jerk. Janet is a great lady and we spent only like 10 minutes talking before she was called away by someone else. I can maybe see myself having a crush on her if you weren’t already my soulmate.” There he goes again, dropping terrible hints and being vulnerable. If he kept this up, would he push Chris further away? Or yank him closer? (Against his already expressed will)

Chris flushes faint scarlet, and sputters.

“Janet’s a robot, I don’t think you can date her.” Again, not acknowledging Dustin’s slip up, he notes.

“Not a robot.” Janet chimes in. “Are you two ready to fly?”

They made it to the front of the line already. He can leave this behind for a bit; maybe leave these persistent feelings behind in the sky.

“Yeah we’re ready.” Chris reaches out for the goggles in Janet’s outstretched hand and passes Dustin one.

“Okay. Step up to the launch pad one at a time. Put on the goggles and bend your knees. I will send you into the sky and you will be able to move freely in the direction you’re facing. It’ll feel intuitive. When time is up, we will call you down. Any questions?” Janet explains.

“No, I’ll figure it out when I’m up there! Can I go first?” Dustin exclaims, strapping the goggles on and practically hopping onto the trampoline before hearing an answer. He almost trips once he gets on it, somehow not expecting the platform to be so solid. Chris laughs again, and it shoots right through Dustin’s spine.

“Bend your knees, and 3, 2, 1, fly.” Janet announces and suddenly Dustin’s body launches straight up in the sky and his knees straighten out in reflex. A few seconds pass and everything gradually slows around him until he’s hovering 100 feet in the air from where he just stood. Dustin glances down and sees Chris steadying himself on the trampoline (not a trampoline, it wasn’t bouncy at all) and Janet staring up right at him, waving her arms at him to get out of the way. It really feels like she’s a flight attendant, the way she’s directing traffic in the sky and the way she’s dressed.

Oh right, making sure Chris does not crash into him. Dustin pulls his elbows back and propels himself away. He gasps with delight as his body sways in the direction he was aiming for, just as easily as Janet promised. He tries a couple more things out: stopping and turning directions, a mini sky dive, a mid-air flip where his eyes meets Chris’ upside down.

“Chris!”

“Dustin!” Chris mimics back with affection.

“C’mon, let’s go explore the neighbourhood.”

He makes a quick move to grab Chris by the hand again, duly noting how often he’s been doing that in the past two days and admitting he’s been trying to find excuses to do so every chance he gets. There’s something freeing about that, being able to share moments like that without being turned down (the way friends never are, Dustin reminds himself).

“Whoa wait, I haven’t figured out – fork you’re so fast Dustin!” Chris blurts out as force drags him along Dustin’s trajectory.

“Yeah sorry, I wanted to get away from the launch area before we get hit.” He laughs sheepishly.

* * *

The two of them hover passively above the lake, Dustin excitedly pointing out how he’s higher up than some seagulls.

“I’m surprised you aren’t zigzagging across the sky Dustin. This is flying time, not floating time you know? Though I’m not complaining, it’s a nice view.” Chris says.

Dustin props himself up on his elbows as he flattens himself out in mid-air. He swears he has a dreamy look on his face he can’t shake as he looks down into the neighbourhood, seeing the span of diverse houses, frozen yogurt shops, and nature retreats on the outskirts of town. Chris is right; it is a fabulous view.

“Now that I’m here, it’s not really the flying part I think I really wanted, but just to get away from yesterday. It’s like up here, everything feels far away and in slow motion. I kind of like that. It’s not what I imagined heaven to be, but it’s peaceful eh?” Dustin sighs contently. “Though if you wanted to race, I’ll take you on right now!”

Chris folds his arms and begins to pick himself up.

“This won’t be like Mario Kart Dustin. We have the _exact same_ experience in flying.”

“Is that a challenge?” Dustin teases, rising to meet his friend.

“You bet it’s a challenge. Uh, first one to, hmm, sit on top of Mark and Wardo’s mansion wins?” Chris floats the idea with a smirk. It’s on the other side of town, a fair distance.

Dustin bounces up in response. “Hell yes.”

* * *

There’s a lot Dustin’s been dying (no pun intended) to talk to Chris about. He wants to tell Chris to relax, that by being a good friend also means letting Mark and Eduardo figure it out for themselves and just be there when they do or don’t. He wants to say that flying is just one of the millions of activities that’s in store that have no repercussions of a media fallout, that didn’t involve late nights and greasy takeout and a few too many texts left unread. He wants to give him a few bottles of booze and tell him to at least take the edge off (workaholics be damned). He wants to be able to control his instincts and tell Chris that even if he isn’t interested that Dustin won’t be offended, that he’s still going to be there as a friend because soulmates can be platonic. He just has to quash these little slip ups that flutter frantically, rebelliously out of his heart and ends up smashing Chris’ comfort zone walls into awkward pieces.

But this isn’t the time. Death is eternal and so he has plenty of time to not chicken out. There’s a race to be won first.

Chris chose to fly past all the other folks in the sky by taking higher ground. But Dustin’s sure that going direct is faster if he could just weave past all the other flyers. He thinks he does fairly well at first, screaming out “excuse me” and “sorry heads!” as he spins through air traffic until he can spot his own bright roof in the sky. He wastes a second looking up to spot Chris, making a freaking dive for it.

Oh no he won’t.

Dustin wills his body to speed the hell up straight ahead while lifting upwards at an angle just enough to land right on the mansion’s roof. Just then, Janet announces there’s 15 minutes remaining and Dustin’s attention slips. He slides and headbutts right into Chris.

"Fork man!” Chris yells, rubbing his chest where Dustin made impact with a groan. Dustin rubs his head too in reaction, because damn that did hurt.

“What are you guys doing up there making such a commotion?” A familiar voice calls out – Eduardo’s.

Dustin peeks down and sees Mark and Eduardo near the entrance of their house, no longer in flight suits and looking up at them. Eduardo with a curious expression on the steps, Mark with a slightly bored face sprawled on the grass. Dustin subsequently floats down, figuring flying is over since the race was a tie and they now both have injuries to prove it. He flops onto the ground when he gets down and watches as Chris follows, still one hand pressed into his gut.

“Did you guys end up flying?” Chris asks, taking in the lack of proper gear on the pair.

“I _wanted_ to go flying, but Mark wasn’t much interested. He kept saying how it wouldn’t feel right, which I don’t get. Did you want Janet to make each of us sprout wings or something?” Eduardo explains, exasperated.

“That would be more realistic than having a bunch of humans moving in the sky like actors strapped in ropes at a play, yes.” Mark rolls his eyes.

“Now you’re just being ridiculous Mark my man. Flying is pretty awesome, even without any wings. Well, up until I crashed into Chris and lost the race that was to be my great victory.” Dustin makes a few fake crying gestures with his hands, which makes the three others crack a smile. Some things stay the same.

“So, how’d you end up crashing into Chris? Some unresolved lover’s quarrel?” Eduardo jokes.

“I got distracted by Janet okay, it isn’t as bad as it sounds.” Dustin moans helplessly.

“Speak for yourself Dustin, you and your thick head. I bet you left bruises.” Chris flails back.

“It’s not like it was a crash to our deaths Chris, we’re already dead. It can’t happen twice, Janet promised.” Dustin bickers back, and Eduardo laughs at him.

But Mark is the one who coughs and goes pale at the words, a small gesture that flies under the radar – acknowledged briefly and quickly forgotten.

Chris too, files it away without a second thought, until it blips in his memory a few weeks later. At a group dinner, Eduardo makes a throwaway comment about Mark dying of starvation and Chris catches it again when Mark almost chokes on his burger. The ever so slight hesitance, the takeaway of guilt, the same look he _feels_ when he ignores another flirtatious comment from Dustin.

The next day, Chris wakes up early, skips Michael’s soulmate square-dance party with an apology note to Dustin, and heads straight for Mark and Eduardo’s. The door opens after a minute or so with a sleepy doe-eyed Eduardo.

“What’s up Chris? Did you forget something last night?” He yawns.

“Sorry I’m going to have to borrow Mark for today. You can take Dustin as a partner; he’ll be a bit sad about it but frozen yogurt will cheer him back up.”

When Mark appears and closes the door behind him, sullen with eyebags like he pulled yet another all-nighter (for what he’ll never know), Chris just knows that the sinking feeling in his gut is justified. 

“You’ve been hiding something from us, and I want to know what Mark.” Chris tells him. Straight up, because what’s what friends do.

Mark bites his lip, then sighs.

“Thanks for getting me out of square-dancing Chris, but I’m sorry. This isn’t something you need to know.”

Chris sees Dustin’s far away look in his mind’s eye, telling him to stop worrying. And he’s tried, he really has. But there’s something to be said in his line of work to trust your instincts and to minimize damage. And something tells him that this was grander than just Mark and Eduardo not getting each other, or over each other, or on top of each other.

“Try me. Please.”


	5. The Way We Were

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning that this chapter has slight references to suicidal thoughts/tendencies.

Mark has always been hard to read. The only person who was any good at it was Eduardo, and the guy’s been a few too many years out of practice. And before that, he was either too oblivious or too painfully aware to really want to read Mark like an open book. Chris had a good success rate, not great, especially not when Mark was being stubborn (almost always) and wanted to do things his own way.

Which is to say, Chris is really going into this conversation blind.

* * *

“Where are we Mark?”

Mark shrugs and folds his hands in his lap underneath the shade of the trees. “Far away enough that no one will overhear, not that it matters.”

“Not that what matters? What do you know Mark?” Chris asks, suddenly feeling anxious.

Mark looks at him, eyes blazing blue.

“What tipped you off?” He redirects instead.

Chris is a master of manipulation. He almost never uses it in his barely existent personal life, but it is a critical and necessary skill in his line of work. You must be upfront about bad news, then explain all the actions you are or will be taking (even if it’s half-assed and fake) to mitigate that. When reporters get a whiff of a scandal, you skirt around the questions in non-denials until they’re too dizzy from the circling to remember what they’ve been after in the first place.

Mark isn’t good at this; Chris can at least see through that. It’s a desperate veil of turning the tables, and Mark’s attempt is all defence. He’s hiding more, and Chris is both equally curious and frightened to find out what. Curious, because it isn’t like Mark to keep a secret - and frightened, because of exactly what has been tipping him off and what’s been driving him crazy for a while now.

_How did they die?_

“You and Dustin died in a car accident. Eduardo died from alcohol poisoning, well, a mix of drugs but mainly alcohol. I died from malnutrition.”

Wait, what?

It takes Chris a few seconds to realize that he had said his last thought out loud. It takes him a hell of a lot longer to absorb Mark’s statement and to register that it was in fact, not said sarcastically.

Mark stares at him blankly. Neither of them says a word – and then:

“You wanted to know. I warned you that you didn’t need to.” Mark mumbles, and then actually has the gall to stand up and turn as if he’s going to _leave as if –_

Chris considers himself very diplomatic. It’s part of the job. But god damn it if Mark didn’t make him want to just throw all that out the window. He grabs Mark by the back of his hood and in a frenzy, tugs hard enough that the other man basically falls flat on his back.

“Chris, that was playing dirty.”

“I don’t care. You’re not leaving until you can answer all my questions.” Mark is not off to a good start when his first answer is already giving Chris ten additional questions. It’s hauntingly familiar to the adrenaline he’d get from patching together a PR nightmare, a sick thrill except this time it’s cutting too close, too personal.

“Are you interrogating me like I’m a sex scandal waiting to happen? Because that wasn’t fun before.” Mark drones, slowly picking his back off the ground.

“If that’s what it takes.” Chris mutters. “Start talking.”

* * *

“How do you know how we died?”

Mark explains that when he woke up, the door to Michael’s office was not fully closed. He could see the architect pacing and speaking into a dictaphone, saying something about attempt number 85 and how he’ll get the best of Zuckerberg this time. Then he heard a click before Michael’s voice turned a bit too sweet and panicky. Mark had shuffled closer to the door to peek in and realized that it was a conversation between Michael and his boss. At that moment, it hadn’t made any sense, apart from hearing Michael essentially cackle over the ironies of their untimely demises with the guy on the other side. Then he got the real spiel (or rather fake) from Michael about the Good Place and ever since then, the pieces have been coming together.

Chris gapes. “Wait, you mean to say, this is the Bad Place?”

“If it isn’t, there’s sure a lot of mentions of the word torture in heaven.” Mark replies, snarky.

“That’s not, they _said that?”_

“More or less. How’s the torture of the four humans going? Your daily torture report is late today Michael. I can’t wait to see the torture up close myself.” His monotone delivery could have been comforting if not for the repeated use of the T word.

“Why are you so okay with this Mark?” Chris wails. This isn’t right. This would mean the four of them were in hell, and if they were the only four humans… that would mean everything else has been an act! There’s no way, there’s hundreds of people here, and Janet is able to give each of them what they want. There are no worries here, no dangers, no stress. Everything is planned out, one activity stringed after another - for goodness sakes people had _soulmates here._

“I’m not okay with it. I’ve just had a lot more time to mull this over than you.” There’s a touch of resignation in Mark’s voice, and he sounds so far away even though he's well within Chris’ reach.

“How are you so sure?”

“Because, we’ve been here before. I can’t remember them very clearly, but I know Michael was telling the truth when he said this is the 85th time we’ve been through this. It sounds like I would’ve figured it out eventually, and we would’ve started over.”

Chris knows, when faced with a crazy story, he needs corroboration – does it add up?

“Mark, you’re basing this all off one eavesdropped conversation. We literally went flying the second day – I mean you could have too. In a place where you can have anything you want, how are you so convinced we’ve been reliving some Groundhog Day nightmare?”

Mark pauses, and then speaks, ever so softly. “Now that I told you that you and Dustin died in a car accident, does it come more clearly? You probably only remember getting into the car to get to that conference; they said it was quick and painless.”

At those words, Chris’ mind suddenly flashes back to what Mark originally said, like it's an indisputable fact.

And he hates when Mark’s right. Chris can now rack his brain for bursts of moving pictures in faded motions of closing the car door behind him, complaining to Dustin about how late they’ll be if the traffic doesn’t let up soon. There’s a veil over the memory, and Chris wants to desperately believe it’s a dream. But unlike a dream, the vivid images don’t fade. If anything, they get clearer, more real as he takes in the pained look in Mark’s downcast eyes.

They share this moment of clarity; unspoken but fractured.

“You were the first ones gone. I didn’t know what to do. Other people got themselves together and planned the funeral, but I chose not to work for a while. This was evidently a bad sign, so someone suggested I go to therapy again.” _Again?_ Chris jots with worry. He had no idea.

“The therapist, she told me I was just going through the normal stages of grief, that at the funeral I could start to say goodbye and begin the slow process to move on. She told me that time doesn’t heal everything, but it will dull the pain for a while. I didn’t believe her. Even seeing you here, it still reminds me of how it hurt receiving the news.” Mark voice hitches now, Chris instinctively slings an arm around his friend in a token of comfort.

“I – I asked one of the organizers if Wardo was on the attendees list. I know he left, but he’d want to come back for this. They had trouble reaching his secretary, so I said I’d take care of it. When I finally got a hold of her, she burst into tears over the phone, blubbering about terrible timing and keeping it under wraps from the media.”

“You mean,” Chris starts, but already knowing the answer.

“He died. They think he mixed up his sleeping pills with alcohol, or just drank too much too fast. I don’t know if it was because of the news on you two. It wouldn’t have helped either way.”

“And … you?” Chris asks cautiously. Everything felt dark.

“I don’t know. I think, after finding that out, I took a break from Facebook, didn’t really take care of myself. It’s no excuse, but everyone who knew how to take care of me was … gone, or scared, or not around. I don’t think I actually died of malnutrition, but it probably didn’t help, the not-eating or sleeping combo. I just didn’t care enough to get up and try.” His voice doesn’t even tremble, just a faint steady line of a heart no longer beating.

Chris understands now that this is how it feels to have a heart break. Not loudly, not in slow motion, but all at once, knocking the life out of his lungs.

“Mark…” He starts again, a chill down his spine. He can’t remember the last sentence he finished, in his mind, or out loud. He woke up this morning in heaven; now Mark tells him they’re in hell, and it sounds like Mark has put himself there since before he died.

“I, that was a late answer to your question. I want to answer them all, so you believe me.” Mark says, rising steadfast and strong. “It feels good, to say this stuff to someone.”

Chris feels the line of his body tighten painfully on Mark’s behalf. So he folds over the tension, lets it melt outwards as he wraps his other arm around Mark in a fierce hug. Mark returns it.

“Why didn’t you say something before? Were you waiting for me to ask? For someone to…?” He mumbles into Mark’s shoulder.

“No, I didn’t want to say anything. How did you realize something was off? It felt best, to let you guys believe you were in the Good Place, as opposed to questioning every action around you and analyzing its effects as elaborate torture.”

Whomever thinks Mark Zuckerberg is a robot can go screw themselves, Mark makes it stick where it counts. Mark gave him a lot; Chris can give him a little.

“I noticed you looked sick, whenever someone mentioned death or dying. I didn’t realize this was why.” Chris explains, pulling back to meet his friend face to face.

“Yeah. It’s hard to forget. Like all the subtle ways they’ve been forking with us. I almost don’t want to tell you, but you asked. Do you still want to know? You won’t be able to unsee it.” Mark supplies with a shrug. It’s another gesture of kindness coming from the same place; just because one person is suffering doesn’t mean everyone else needs to be. But Chris decides he’s already in too deep. He gives a solid head nod at Mark.

“Well for one, square dancing. How is that supposed to be a heavenly activity?” Mark grumbles, folding his arms.

There’s a pregnant pause between them, and then Chris breaks into laughter. It’s such a mundane comment, but it made sense. It really isn’t the kind of thing one thought would be at the top of everyone’s to-do list. Chris can’t stop himself from laughing and after a few seconds of Mark staring blankly at him, his face softens, and he cracks a chuckle too.

Mark goes on to list a few more things. Some which immediately makes sense like square dancing, such as frozen yogurt being the dessert of choice (Dustin had complained about that, why not ice cream? Though he subsequently fell in love with the absurd flavours and walked it back). And some which took Chris some time to absorb, like making Mark give a speech the first night, hobby day (when Chris realized he was sorely lacking some and Eduardo spent the whole day trying to get Mark to stop writing metaphorical code), and the newlyweds game that ended with Eduardo leaving the stage in exasperation (at least not storming out) to Mark’s answer to “what are you most likely to argue about”. On the surface, they seemed legitimate ways to bond, but every strain that threatened to tear them apart was meticulously planned and triggered.

It was subtle, so subtle, but now that the shroud’s been lifted, it’s like all the blurry moments became clear. Michael didn’t need elaborate plots to make them hurt each other. He could just pretend to try and host events for them to be happy, and they would mess it up all on their own.

“Thanks Mark. I still don’t know how to feel about this, but I probably wouldn’t have known.” Chris admits.

“I’d know. Michael pretty much said it himself, I’d always know. But it’s not just that.” Mark is still just as bright as he was in his Harvard days, just as confident without (as much) the side of assholery. He says it like a sad fact, and then Chris learns why.

“There’s a lot of things I did right, and just as many things I’ve done wrong. I figured when the time came they’d flip a coin for me, to decide which way I’d go. But then I came here, and they told me Wardo was my soulmate and I saw him, _he was here_ , and I couldn’t say anything. I had to fork that all up the first day, and the whole time all I could think of was this must be hell, where I would be stuck failing to make amends with Wardo. That’s when what Michael said clicked, how even after 85 tries, I’m stuck in the same spot.”

Chris staggers at the confession. “You think that just having Wardo back in your life is the ultimate form of torture Mark?”

Mark nods. “Why do you think he paired you up with Dustin?”

There it is again, that sinking feeling in his lungs, the flash of every hint Dustin has made and tried to take back. It was getting too hard to ignore, like putting a puppy down or something equally cruel, when he could see Dustin trying to not care, when the joking element of wanting to _date Chris_ became more real than just a game.

“We’re shirty soulmates aren’t we.” Chris mutters hoarsely, and that gets a smile and a breath of affirmation out of his friend. It’s true, because Chris had been so guarded against what Dustin had wanted, been so disappointed that he wasn’t going to get what he wanted (despite truly not knowing what that was), that he’d just wanted to not talk about it at all. It seemed Eduardo was taking the same approach, except Mark isn’t anything like Dustin and would have probably never pushed the issue until it was too late.

In both cases, it isn’t fair. It hurts both him and Dustin. It hurts both Mark and Eduardo. It’s fucking devious and sly and _perfect._ The kind of wound from not speaking what’s on his mind because he’s too afraid he’ll never get a second chance, that if he discloses his feelings, there’s no going back and pretending the way Chris has been trying to do. He doesn’t want to hurt Dustin like that, pushing a strong friendship over the edge for the sake of a slim chance of success, a foolish experiment with a guy who was flirting with bisexuality.

Then it smashes into him, the idea that knocks his wind out.

“Mark…why don’t you just talk to him?”

Mark stares at Chris as if he’s crazy. “It’s not like I haven’t tried. He doesn’t want to, and I still don’t know what to say. He’s looking for something, and I have no idea what.”

“No, I mean, you figure it out right? And then Michael, he resets everything because of it and you have to go through it again. So why don’t you just try it? If there are no consequences to your actions, you should just tell him how you feel instead of guessing what’s right.” A morally gray area, sure, but so is telling people they’re in heaven when they’re in hell. All the cards should be on table.

Mark balks at his words. “That’s like saying I should always tell you guys you’re also being tortured every time I figure it out. That’s like saying, you should just forking date Dustin already to get him off your back because what’s the harm? Are you going to? What if they don’t restart the timeline because you two break up and that’s better torture than playing make believe?”

Mark makes a good point. The markets aren’t guaranteed to continue climbing; past performance is not indicative of the future. But it’s so tempting, just giving into his curiosity and imagining Dustin’s smile widen and his eyes curl into crescent moons. If nothing else, the beginning is enough.

“I want you to though. I’d want you to keep telling me, even if I forget, even if I don’t figure it out, even if you go march up to Michael right now to trigger a rewind. I can’t walk on eggshells forever, and I know you haven’t said anything because some messed up part of you thinks you deserve this, but we’re not going to just sit back and let them _torture us okay?”_ Chris exclaims. Mark’s always been stubborn, but this, Chris will make him bend.

“I- okay. I’ll, I’ll try to tell you. If I figure it out, if it happens again. Not that I’ll remember this conversation.” Mark finally says, quietly. He doesn’t mention anything about looking for a solution out of this. Are they doomed to continue playing someone else’s game?

“You said you always figure it out, don’t you? So I’m counting on it. Don’t go quitting on me now. Don’t quit on any of us.”

Is starting over quitting? What are the chances it ends okay and then he forgets? Or if it goes terribly and he loses his friend?

_Mark thinks that Eduardo being here is designed to torture him. And that Dustin’s feelings are a way to torture us both, keeping us at a stalemate._

Chris is going to show them. One way or another, he’ll tip the scales in their direction. Soulmates or not, Dustin deserves more, they both do. So do the other two idiots. There’s a lot that went unsaid because they chose to leave them unsaid – apologies and misunderstandings allowed to stand. Is it only now that they get a second, or the 86th chance? How did those reiterations of Chris act? If this is all an act, is that not a good enough reason to switch the narrative, go off script?

Chris likes certainties, likes to shut down a situation before it becomes a crisis. He gets in front of things, puts out fires. He doesn’t believe that the worst-case scenario won’t materialize because he makes it his job to not have it materialize. But he can’t think that way anymore, not when they’re taken advantage of it.

“I won’t.” Mark agrees. It’s a start.


	6. Unwinding Roads

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More than halfway there! 
> 
> I do want to note that I have changed the rating to M due to sexual content. It's mostly implied and in non-explicit words, but I think it does warrant the rating change.
> 
> Hope you enjoy; please leave some love if you do.

The past couple of weeks were like navigating a landmine, except Eduardo has the map, well kind of.

Since he arrived in the Good Place, Eduardo’s kind of lodged himself between a rock and a hard place. Mainly after that first night, he’s been struggling to figure out where to go from here. Luckily for him, time is totally on his side. He’s not young anymore; he thinks through his decisions. He can balance between all these different variables, prioritize, model the results.

For one, Eduardo know this is an opportunity for reconciliation, even before Mark had essentially asked him to. He was never one to believe in signs from the universe…but having the guy who screwed you out of your own company die when you died and now serving as your live-in soulmate seems to scream second chance.

It would be easy - if Mark could be easily forgiven.

It feels like Eduardo’s spent his entire adult life revolving around how to feel about Mark at any given time, if he should be taking care of him, working with him, or trying to get acknowledgment in the form of a check or a glance. Nothing about that is easy.

Time heals all is a very common saying, but to Eduardo that only works if the object of your pain isn’t still in your life. It’s just not as effective if said heartbreaker keeps swinging by to say hello and then ducks back to the room beside you, where he _lives_. It’s like before, he was on a 12 step Mark cleanse plan, and now he’s reset back to zero in a relapse so hard and out of his control that it honestly skews his entire perception.

What does he want? It isn’t like now he and Mark were made up, cuddling on the couch on Friday nights watching movies and splashing flour on each other’s faces for fun while making cookies. Don’t get him wrong, there were moments of peacefulness, thoughtful conversations that would end all too abruptly when Eduardo sensed they were getting to an area he didn’t feel comfortable breaching. Mark was surprisingly accommodating, not pushing and blowing past it with his signature shrug. It made Eduardo want to say yes, to talk things over, to bite the bullet, tell Mark the whole truth and let the cards fall where they may, even if it shatters the illusion he’s made peace with. But he can’t bring himself to pull the trigger first, because, well…

A part of him felt guilty, that when the angry phone calls and the laptop smashing happened, he could not tell what percentage of his pain came from the burned wreckage of a business partnership, a friendship that always gave too much and took too little, or from the anguish of having his heart stomped on even though Mark (probably) didn’t know that’s what he was doing. There was a small voice in his head, thinking that Mark deserves to know, if his motivations were misguided by innocent hope or dickful thinking. And then Eduardo thinks to all the things he deserved to know from Mark, and the blue heartache twists instead into a burning fury.

He rotates between the two sides, swinging wildly. One day he’ll be clapping Mark’s back for his savage comebacks at Dustin after he blundered the murder mystery solve, and the next he’d be so shaky from anger from something Mark said at dinner that he’d resolve to sleep in an _actual_ guest room to avoid having to hear the familiar typing next door. It’s becoming exhausting, the indecision, and yet he can’t imagine sitting down and listening to Mark pour out what is in the black box that is his soul and him returning the favour. Eduardo blushes at the thought of saying the words _I was in love with you and now that you’re here, I’m reminded that I’m not sure if I ever fell out_ , the current most definitive phrase for how he feels.

Eduardo still thinks Mark is hiding something, and he’s not ready for what that brings in a confrontation where he’s sure to strip himself bare.

* * *

That day, Chris had whisked Mark away and left Eduardo to pick up Dustin for square dancing. It didn’t go _well_ exactly – Dustin spent it sulking and being wildly uncoordinated, and while Eduardo was more elegant at these kinds of things, Chris’ sudden request came as an unexpected distraction. He lost track of how many times he apologized to his partner for being out of sorts and for having two left feet. It felt amiss, being the clumsy one.

“Hey Wardo, what do you think Chris and Mark are up to?” Dustin asks innocently afterwards over a mouthful of _“first kiss”_ alongside _“second kiss, first is awkward”_ frozen yogurt (Dustin swears that the two pair quite nicely together).

Eduardo shrugs. “Who knows, just glad I didn’t have to go through that dance with Mark. He would’ve probably groaned the whole way through and gotten his feet wrecked by wearing flip flops there.” He takes a bite out of _“fast wifi”_ (Mark had rated it highly last they came) and hums in appreciation.

Dustin laughs. “Wardo my man, you don’t give Mark enough credit.”

“About what?” Eduardo asks.

“He would’ve tried… ish, I think, if it seemed like you wanted him to. He’s been trying, hasn’t he?” Dustin replies.

Eduardo is open-mouthed and full of yogurt when he interrupts himself from protesting. Dustin isn’t as eloquent as Chris, but he has his rare moments of insightfulness. He knows Mark has been trying, and if it’s that obvious…

He and Dustin leave the frozen yogurt shop after Dustin gets a second helping of _“puppy cuddles”_ and part ways. When he gets home, Mark still isn’t back. The house feels empty - it’s been a while since he’s spent so long away from Mark. It’s interesting to remember that while he was last alive, that’s all he’s wanted. Now that he has it for a day, Eduardo’s core feels tight and oddly wound.

“Hey Janet?”

 _Bing!_ Janet appears, all warm smiles and soft eyes. “Hi Eduardo. How can I help you?”

Eduardo didn’t need anything in particular, so he’s not sure why he called Janet. She stands there waiting, so open and quizzical that Eduardo just blurts out the first thing on his mind, ignoring the nagging feeling that he’s asking Siri something just to quench his loneliness.

“Hey Janet, do you think Mark is sorry? About the dilution?” He’s not going to pretend he’s over it now that he’s asking Janet something he cannot bring to ask Mark.

Janet stops as to think for a moment, and Eduardo thinks maybe she has something more useful to say than _I’m unable to help with that right now._ But then, she states clearly: “That’s a complicated question, and I don’t think I can give you a good answer.”

Figures.

“That’s alright, I don’t know why I asked.” He sighs. The man himself said he was sorry, well at least had the intention to say sorry, just not in so many words, or out loud, or at all.

“Can I interest you in a fun fact instead?” She asks. Eduardo almost smiles at her serious attempt to be helpful when the door opens and Mark steps through. Eduardo whips his head around towards him, like he’s drawn.

“You’re back.” Eduardo says.

“Yeah, I need to talk to you.” Mark replies without missing a beat. Janet takes one look between the two of them and taps Eduardo’s shoulder with a gentle smile as always, and disappears.

“Did you have a good conversation with Chris? Did he put you up to something?” Eduardo teases, though without much heat.

“Yeah, he did.” Mark answers, and Eduardo is taken back by the straightness of it. Mark is direct, yes, but there’s nothing in the Good Place that required this much urgency anymore, except maybe where it all began. It’s part of the reason why they’ve been good together, holding the status quo in place. What could Chris have possibly said to light a fire in Mark?

* * *

Eduardo grabs a water and tosses one to Mark out of habit. He sinks into the cream cushions of their couch and gestures for Mark to sit beside him. It’s not like he doesn’t have a feeling what this is about, and while he is not ready, something about Mark’s boldness convinces him.

“I know you said you needed time, but, I, well Chris said something. I feel like you’re running away, and I’m letting you do it again because it’s kinder. But it feels like I’m quitting on you without the slightest semblance of what to do. You know I’m not good at this, so I need you to tell me.” Mark cuts to the chase, makes a request like – well Eduardo isn’t sure if he should feel surprised when Mark has always been gifted at framing a favour like a demand.

“It’s okay, I can take it.” Mark follows up after a split second, slightly more quietly, as if admitting a shameful fault. But Eduardo gets it, can sense his hesitation clawing at his desire to walk the tightrope. Mark’s saying to him it’s okay, to unleash his anger and lash out the way he still wants to.

It’s been so long since he’s looked back, that he’s not sure what’s buried underneath. It’ll hurt, to dig that up. It will probably hurt more to pile on top, looking for excuses to put off forgiving. Isn’t a second life a good enough excuse to at least try?

_Mark gave him time. Now he is asking him to try._

For all their difficulties, it isn’t like he has not tried. Dustin is probably right about that one. He’s noticed it the first night, kept noticing it since. Mark’s still not good at cooking and he doesn’t need to be here, but he tried to make breakfast once for Soulmates’ Day before Eduardo woke up in the shape of some wobbly heart shaped pancakes. He stayed up all night to do it (who needs all night to make pancakes?) and saved Eduardo another night of falling asleep to the rhythm of keys clacking next door in a familiar rhythm, broken once in a while by a single jab and then silence.

“Are you sure?” Eduardo asks softly.

Mark nods once decisively. “Lay it on me. There’s no lawyers here. Just pretend I’m your therapist, though you’re not paying me. Tell me.”

“How did you know I have a therapist?” Eduardo says in shock. His therapist got the whole spiel when they first met after the pages of confidential agreement documents. He’d let it all out, all at once years ago, and then tried to never mention Mark again.

Mark just shrugs at him. “Doesn’t everyone?” The implication lays unspoken; Eduardo doesn’t push it.

“You want to know why I haven’t forgiven you?” Eduardo asks instead.

“Apart from the fact I haven’t apologized, yes.”

“Because you still don’t know what you should be apologizing for.” He deadpans.

Mark is silent for a moment, and then shakes his head. “It’s more complicated than that now, isn’t it?”

Eduardo feels his heart tremble. It’s ironic, because he’s always thought Mark can see right through him, but this entire conversation is the epitome of the opposite.

“Yeah. We both did wrong. We didn’t hear each other. I made assumptions and you retaliated. I didn’t want us to end that way. I wish you just talked to me before it got that far, before you left me behind.” _Before you broke my heart._

“I did talk to you, like you said, you didn’t hear me.” Mark huffs stubbornly.

“Talked to me about what?” Eduardo tries to not raise his voice preemptively, defensively. It’s hard to remember anything he and Mark discussed back then when it came to their differing views on the direction of Facebook.

“I said, I’m afraid you were going to get left behind. You weren’t hearing me, and then it came true.” Mark mutters.

“Because you cut me _out_ Mark! You know who leaves people behind in these kinds of decisions? The person who _made it._ ”

“I tried, you didn’t come out. So many times, I told you, I couldn’t keep calling you to update you on every little thing when news out there changed by the hour!” Mark raises his voice in turn. “I told you I need you _with me.”_

“And I told you I couldn’t leave New York. Were you going to cut me out then?” Eduardo shouts, shaky.

“You’re doing it again, you’re not hearing me when I’ve told you I needed you. Plus, you shouldn’t have been in New York in the first place!”

“I was trying to make it all work Mark. The world doesn’t revolve around your demands and whether or not you say you need me.”

“Geez I didn’t know that I wasn’t the sun. What you mean to say was that Facebook wasn’t worth the risk, rather than the internship your father was so invested in.” Mark snaps sarcastically.

Eduardo trips over himself in his head, seething in anger. “Of course Facebook was worth the risk! I invested nineteen _thousand dollars_ of my own money because I thought it was worth it, I thought Facebook was brilliant and you were brilliant, and you were damn well forking worth it. My father didn’t back then, of course not, why would he? It was only in hindsight that he looked down on me for choosing what he wanted before.”

“I _know_ all of that, but in the end you still didn’t choose us, it was too late Wardo.” Mark all but drops to a whisper, almost cowering from Eduardo’s burns. The timid, hurt tone hits Eduardo like waves of guilt. It’s true, like everything else Mark has said, but it still breaks Eduardo like nothing else. The nickname still stings, the way Mark defaults to it like a trademark; he’s given up telling Mark no. How is that he can never tell Mark no, and the one time he did is the one he regrets most even after circling the drain?

“When did it become too late Mark? When did you decide to screw me out of Facebook secretly instead of confronting me about it? When was the turning point?” Eduardo is frankly proud of himself for toning down the hysteria that threatens to bubble over in his throat, except now he’s veering on the edge of desperation. When was it too late for them? When was his last chance? Why does it matter now anyway?

Mark slams his fist down onto the couch, the very soft couch which dims the otherwise would’ve-been dramatic effect.

“There was no turning point. We were moving at two different speeds, we slowly drifted apart in a fast amount of time. One day I looked beside me, and you weren’t there. You weren’t even behind me, you just _left._ You froze the account, you became a risk, and I couldn’t tell Sean any good reason why you still deserved to be Facebook’s CFO!” Mark yells, and Eduardo’s head spins. 

“I, did Sean put you up to this? I knew he didn’t like me but – Mark,” The hysteria he was trying so hard to knock down seeps at the sides, he can’t think straight, can’t talk straight - 

Mark groans. “Don’t do this. You know I was stupidly enamoured with him, but he wouldn’t have convinced me to do anything that wasn’t a good idea already. This was on me, so blame _me_ if you have to. _”_ Mark’s voice is hard and to be honest quite respectable, but Eduardo’s head hitches on the word _enamoured_ and doesn’t let go.

“We were okay until you met him, weren’t we?” There’s a spark of hope there Eduardo hates, like he and Mark’s friendship breaking apart hinged on meeting Sean Parker. He knows that isn’t true, but it always feels better, _safer_ to point fingers at a villain. He knows he and Mark were wrong back then too, too much give and take, unspoken expectations, except there were never any real consequences to that until Facebook became big.

“I don’t know what we were, what happened, it’s, fork, whatever it was it was all wrong, this is all wrong. You’re not getting it Wardo. Aren’t you supposed to be mad at me? Why are you so intent on hating Sean?” Mark’s frustration picks up. He wants to win the blame game, why doesn’t Eduardo want him to?

_Because you want to forgive him, but you don’t think you can with what you have now._

“Because you were taken with him in the way you never were with me.” It slips out like a cracked egg, a disaster, a ruined mess on the floor. Eduardo shivers, and looks away.

“How was I supposed to know? You never said anything and I couldn’t figure that out until it was too late and we were dead and I was apologizing for the same thing over and over again to my motherforking soulmate.” Mark fumes, and then he freezes and whitens. Mark is pale by nature, but Eduardo discerns the difference, like a job he can’t quit.

_Oh. This is the secret he’s been hiding._ It strikes Eduardo then, and when he turns back to meet Mark’s gaze he understands. There’s guilt there, the faraway look of defeat, like he’s been here before. The crestfallen silence makes Eduardo want to choke back this whole conversation, if he can just make this all stop, make the ache and the pitiful feelings _go away._

“What do you mean over and over again Mark?” He finally asks to his feet, and the slight slump in Mark’s shoulders confirms it for Eduardo before Mark even speaks.

“I wanted the words to be right, but I probably failed every time because all I’ve got are empty pages and stupid drafts in my laptop. That’s, that’s what I mean.” Mark rambles, helplessly, and all it does is fill another missing piece. The typing, the silences – Mark’s been reversing every word of the apology that never was, still never is, quitting on it before it even begins. While Eduardo trusts that Mark’s telling the truth, it isn’t the whole truth.

“Mark… tell me.” Eduardo whispers. The gig is up, and Mark’s gaze darkens before he opens his mouth; Eduardo’s heart gets a split-second head start to skip a beat.

“We’ve been here before. All of this is an elaborate ruse. Michael’s trying to torture us with each other and well, it’s working.” Mark says flatly.

More cogs spin, and Eduardo shakes. “You’re saying this is all a lie? How can this be?”

“Isn’t this conversation proof enough? _Soulmate?_ ” Mark retorts back, the words searing into Eduardo’s skin.

“What are you saying?” Eduardo says, even as he realizes.

There’s a bitter look in Mark’s eyes when he replies.

“You know exactly what.”

And somehow Eduardo does. He can read Mark as well as ever, when he’s brutally honest and letting things out that are normally so hard to say. Nothing has changed; they’re talking but in circles about something as important as being in fake heaven. But he does understand what Mark means - it takes only one thought to be able to think that yeah, Michael could get them to make each other miserable. They’ve done it before - Eduardo for one feels it every night when he fights between hating and loving Mark the way he’s been conditioned to. The fact that they’re soulmates is torture, and it’s fucking perfect.

“It’s all a plan you said, to get us to turn against each other.” Eduardo starts.

“Yes. The audience at the gala, the soulmate activities, they’re all designed to push us. Just enough to stay off the edge.” It expresses how Eduardo feels very well, almost too well. The living room slows around him, the edges blurring in his vision. If the goal was to turn his feelings inside out and hurt him that way, then they’ve done a brilliant job. And if it’s all pre-determined to end poorly then, does it matter anymore? What’s the harm? Isn’t this as bad as it can get?

Eduardo feels his self-destructive feelings pounding its cage, _shattering_. Because this is the one thing he wants, even though he doesn’t want to want it, hates that he does like it’s ingrained in his soul, loves how it drives him insane because he can’t imagine anything else but _living and loving this mess of a life (or afterlife) with Mark._

“If that’s the case, let’s prove them wrong.” Eduardo hums, leaning closer until he can feel Mark’s breath on his face, pushing his luck. It’s exhilarating, something he’s thought about so many times and never acted on because of lack of courage at first, then because love wasn’t as strong as betrayal, and now…

Now he feels bizarrely calm. They’re not good at talking, in fact after all this, Mark was no closer to an apology as he ever was, and Eduardo, he has so much more to say, more warmth than cold arguments, apologies of his own. But he wants to hold out until he knows Mark is worth it, worth bearing his soul for a second time.

“What?” Mark’s voice is low and indignant, but his eyes lack the same bite. Eduardo gets lost in it for a moment, the vulnerability. It’s enough for him to say fuck it and presses his right hand into Mark’s chest, cherishes the surprise flashing across his face when Eduardo exerts more force and they crash into the couch together in freefall. Eduardo dives in and kisses Mark.

This is the closest they’ve ever been, Eduardo thinks, as his forehead hits Mark’s. His body moves like muscle memory even though they’ve never done this before, his lips parting to press further when he feels Mark move beneath him. Eduardo instinctively pulls away; it’s one thing to take a shot and another to push on when Mark doesn’t want to.

Then he feels it, Mark’s hand on his back, pulling him down, the unmistakable motion of Mark’s lips tilting to match his own. Mark is kissing him back, warm and welcoming. If this is torture, Eduardo’s just fine with it. If this is what Mark meant by needing him back then, god. Eduardo tries to not think about the years of time he could’ve been doing this instead, and by the way liquid heat pools in his stomach, he’s failing spectacularly. It’s no use thinking that way, he notes. It’s not like that would’ve solved things, just would’ve added another sore blind spot to a messy situation, actually stomping on Eduardo’s heart instead of leaving it to wilt.

It strikes him that he really hasn’t kissed anyone in a while, so the sensation feels brand new even though his body’s on auto pilot. Maybe that’s why he’s so swept up by this. He sinks into the kiss, his tongue brushing and then entangling with Mark’s; he’s rewarded when Mark gasps against him, mouth opening wider and hips buckling up. _No, he’s swept up by this because it’s Mark, simple as that._

Eduardo shudders against him, the reality of Mark’s enthusiasm quickly settling in. He’s not a teenager anymore, and he’s been okay living without sexual contact. A damn kiss shouldn’t make him want to grind into Mark until they’re wholly unwound and undone. Yet, it’s him and Mark together here in the most bizarre of circumstances making that sends his body into overdrive. Right, the circumstances at hand. Eduardo manages to pull himself back for just a moment, and pants breathlessly: “You should’ve told me.”

“Isn’t it too late?” Mark is still so close to him, so close that he wants to forget why they’re here, what started this, and just give into what’s being offered. He tumbles forward to the firm pressure of Mark’s palm pressing into his back. There’s no debate now whether or not Mark wants this when he can feel it in the roll of Mark’s hips. Eduardo doesn’t know how to resist this, so he grinds against Mark just as hard and then Mark moans _Wardo_ so deliberately in a way that will now become the mainstay of Eduardo’s fantasies.

“Mark, we – what are we doing?” Eduardo stares right into Mark’s blue eyes, now glazed over with a single-minded focus that tears him apart. The full brunt of Mark’s attention makes him feel nervous in this context, even though it’s something he’s always craved.

“You kissed me, so you tell me.” Mark tells him, almost cheeky. He’s right, but he’s only half of a _we,_ the other half looking dazed and expectant and frankly ravishing. Eduardo unconsciously licks his lips at the sight, and Mark rises to graze them with his own. Eduardo yelps in reaction, falls on his ass on the other side of the couch.

“Was that not a signal?” Mark asks, caustically.

God damn it. He wants to shove his pathetic yearning back down as much as he wants to shove his tongue into Mark’s mouth and bite him until he has no more sarcastic comebacks. He wants to say sorry and hear it be spoken back after they each lay their souls flat and wipe their pain clean. He wants Mark to stare at him again with want in his eyes, the words _I need you Wardo_ hanging off him like an exposed wound. He wants to lace his fingers in between Mark’s and kiss him until he smiles back. He’s a hopeless romantic thinking of kisses in the rain when if anything the path they’re going down is that of angry hate sex.

He selfishly wants more if he can get it, and that means starting from a place that’s not this, one mashed together from deception, carelessness, and far too much pent-up sexual tension.

“We can’t do this.” Eduardo scoots back as far as he can, the action taking up all his carefully guarded self-control. Mark sits up, blinking faster than usual at him.

“Why not?”

“Because, this isn’t, god, we’re not made for this. We’re not even emotionally equipped to talk to each other honestly never mind this…” Eduardo wallows. 

“We’re soulmates, so we are exactly made for this. I’ve been honest with you; I’m not playing you. I wouldn’t be doing this unless I wanted to.” Mark is eloquent as always, the matter-of-factness drains warmth from Eduardo’s bones, and makes him weak in the knees. It’s not enough that Mark wants to fuck because they’re soulmates, but he must long for the other parts of it too, the relationship that never was. It’s too transparent, too desperate, to just say so. So he opts for the half-truth.

“Me kissing you was a mistake Mark. I did it because you said we’ve been here before and clearly it never works out if we’re still here. So I didn’t want to live with you at an impasse for eternity not knowing if you, if we could be, _soulmates._ ”

“You did this, thinking you’d forget.” Mark says, eyes widening in realization. He puts words to the damp feeling Eduardo despises, a lapse in judgment that gave him hope only for his rational side to tear it away.

“…yeah. I wanted to know, but that was impulsive. I shouldn’t have done it.”

“I don’t get it. What’s wrong with taking what you want?” Mark asks, eyes crinkling. It should be so simple. He wants it to be, but Mark’s wrong. Taking what you want without considering the fallout is terrifying to him now – the thought of choosing Mark when he doesn’t know what Mark’s willing to give and he’s too scared to ask. Eduardo wants to clarify things, wants to let it out, but all he wants now is to reverse time to a moment when he didn’t know how Mark tastes, the sounds he can make. He doesn’t want to regret it, he doesn’t want to forget this, how they lit each other up like sparklers coming to life. But he can barely stop wanting it as it was before, how can he keep going when he _knows_ – he’s a damn coward.

“Nothing, I’m sorry Mark, I thought I could, but I can’t. This isn’t the new beginning we need. I want to start over.” Eduardo chokes. It’s incredibly selfish, and it’s not the apology he wanted to say, but it means just the same. He’s about to get up and walk away without looking at Mark, spineless and broken before he can think twice when Mark appears in his line of sight, blue eyes flashing at him. For a second, Eduardo thinks Mark is going to kiss him again, the very thought and possibility now pangs through his bloodstream, and Eduardo knows that they’d never be able to move past it. But then Mark’s eyes soften at him, looking almost wistful, regretful.

“If that’s what you want.” He whispers and walks out, beating Eduardo to the chase.


	7. Interlude

Mark presses one finger to his upper lip on the steps of their home. Outside, it is almost sunset, a reminder that time hasn’t stood still since Eduardo’s kissed him. It’s been some time since he’s relished in human contact, much less that of an intimate nature. Facebook is (was) a job that never sleeps, and it worked just as well that Mark barely slept also. There wasn’t much time to go pick up strangers, much less date seriously, though he did occasionally get propositioned. It just never seemed worth the effort, given that Mark could blow Chris’ brains out with a bad speech much less a relationship gone sour.

But Eduardo kissing him, it’s all he can think about now. It isn’t as if he’s never thought of Eduardo that way; only Eduardo could occupy his mind so often and it isn’t such a giant leap to assume that could be more than platonic. Dying and being his soulmate just bumped up that possibility - and then Eduardo kissed him, and that ended that discussion. No one else has even come close. Eduardo kisses like Mark’s something delectable, something worth craving and Mark, well, he has no idea how he kisses except that he was really into it and that spurred Eduardo on like nothing else. It felt right, being with Eduardo that way, as if he found a missing puzzle piece. It felt like second nature in fact, his fleeting fantasies coming to a head until he was kissing, tugging, ravenous for more. Until Eduardo abruptly walked it all back and left Mark reeling.

He’s always suspected, but never truly known. Either Eduardo’s still in love with him, or he’s just a fantastic lover, very likely both.

Either way, that’s a foregone conclusion now, but _this_ is not.

Mark’s eyes narrow as he processes exactly what he’s seeing. Chris and Dustin are walking back together, faces blurry in the distance but Mark can make out the faintest of smiles. As they move closer towards him, he sees Dustin’s hand holding onto another frozen yogurt cup (he seriously eats too many of those), and Chris making a move for the spoon. Their hands are interlaced – so Chris did it after all.

Chris is still laughing, spoon in mouth when he catches Mark’s eyes. He curls his lips into a gratifying smile in Mark’s direction, and Mark muses that he hasn’t seen Chris smile so much in a long time. Except –

Mark opens his mouth to speak but snaps it closed just as quick. Dustin’s still within earshot. He’s also no good at yelling.

So, he just locks eyes with Chris, deliberately, blankly, and shakes his head.

* * *

It doesn’t come as a surprise when Chris breaks away from Dustin a few short seconds later. Dustin starts to protest but Chris mouths something that turns and frames Dustin’s lips in a wide-open O. Their hands come apart, and Chris walks away. Mark watches and waits patiently, his chest feeling peculiarly tight when Chris pauses and turns back. There’s a slight hesitation in his step, but then he quickly leaps to close the gap between them and kisses Dustin on the cheek.

And now Chris is running towards Mark, and Dustin is rubbing his cheek starstruck.

It reminds Mark of himself minutes ago; is there still a trace of Eduardo left on his mouth? Can he taste it if he tried?

Then Chris is in front of him, no longer smiling. He has his goddamn PR look on, like his eyes possess x-ray vision and Mark’s going to fess up all his shortcomings. Mark’s been there before, and he can say it’s a pretty effective move. Only this time, it didn’t really matter. Mark’s cards are already on the table, and Chris has no choice but to fold.

“I’m going to tell Michael after this. I thought you should know.” Mark admits.

“Yeah, I figured. Too good to last.” He sighs, not even putting up a fight. “What happened with Eduardo?”

“Why does this have to do with him at all?” Mark argues, solely for the sake of argument. He and Chris have been at this a long time; it’s like checking a box. They both know how this is going to go.

“You’re sitting on the porch of your shared home looking like a lost dejected puppy. I’m going to take that to mean it didn’t go well.” Chris says dryly.

“No, I – it didn’t.” Chris doesn’t need to know the details; he won’t remember it anyway.

“I’m sorry. If it worked out for all of us, they’d probably just figure out some new way to torture us. But if you can, you should tell me in our next life to give Dustin a chance.”

Mark frowns. “You know I won’t remember this conversation, right?”

Chris just shrugs. “You’re the one who said you always figure it out. So figure out a way to make sure you always remember.”

“Chris, you’re being ridiculous.”

“As ridiculous as us being in the Bad Place and living this scenario repeatedly?” Chris retorts.

Fair point, Mark notes, but he replies “no promises” instead.

A moment of silence passes through them, dusk whisking past and settling into the neighbourhood skies. Then Chris takes Mark by surprise - reaches for him and pulls him into an embrace. They don’t hug much, the two of them. Mark doesn’t dislike it, he just doesn’t initiate and there’s usually something about his face that tells others that he wouldn’t be a fan if they made the first move. Chris though, is close enough to take that step, somehow imparting solace on Mark in a warm, calming hug when he’s going to be losing something too. It lasts only a few brief breaths, and then Chris is unwinding himself, standing up with a wistful expression.

“Goodbye Mark, this version of you anyway. Try to be a better soulmate in your next life, won’t you?” He chirps and disappears down the path. Mark is stunned. Chris makes it sound so easy, like all it takes is one short conversation to hold Eduardo’s hand. Eduardo isn’t Dustin, doesn’t serve his feelings on an empty platter. Eduardo wants and doesn’t want Mark at the same time.

Because he promised Eduardo they’d start over, so he wouldn’t need to remember kissing Mark, the way they fit together like a perfect storm, how they both wanted to cling onto something dreadfully broken to feel whole again.

Chris’ words echo and bounce in his mind. There has to be a way, isn’t there? Just because Eduardo wanted to forget didn’t mean he did. He just needs to do better next time, know when to back off, when to push, find their common ground. Mark’s pulse still races from the memory, like he’s suffering withdrawal from a drug and the supplier’s run dry. How does he still fall for this? Realize his mistakes only after he gets slapped with a lawsuit, realizes how damn attracted he is to his best friend after Eduardo commits to quite literally forgetting it all.

What’s stopping Mark from marching back in and grabbing Eduardo by the shirt and kissing him into oblivion?

There’s nothing wrong with taking what you want – Mark did just say that, but this isn’t the way to do it if Eduardo’s so vehemently against it. That much is obvious; a friendship is a two-way street (relationships too).

Mark picks himself up the ground and walks his way to the architect’s office. It’s getting late, and he’d prefer not to have to go back and see Eduardo tonight.

* * *

He’s not sure what he was hoping for, probably that demons don’t sleep and that Michael would still be in his office. He gets one better.

The doors aren’t locked or guarded – it’s the Good Place after all, things here operate on trust. The light is on from underneath the door, and he can hear raised voices, all very promising.

Now or never. After all, they’re already being tortured. What’s the worst that can happen?

Mark bursts through the door, right in the middle of what seems to be quite a scolding. He recognizes Michael, but not the other man – who looks younger, sterner, albeit more authoritative as he was doing the scolding.

“We’re kind of in the middle of something here, did you want something?” The boss man asks, raising one eyebrow.

Mark’s not afraid, and he did want something. He’s figured out that much on the way here.

“Yeah, I want my memories back. Are you the boss here? Can you make that happen?” Mark asks sternly.

Michael pales and Mark can almost see the cogs turning in his head. The boss stares at Mark, and then at Michael. Mark can taste the tension in the air.

“Shawn, I can explain - ” Michael begins, and Mark remembers. The frustration in Michael’s voice as he cursed Mark; the relative docile words when he spoke to, he guesses, Shawn. The late torture reports, the aforementioned visits… Mark couldn’t help it. He laughs out loud.

“What’s so funny?” Shawn asks, sounding inquisitive but playing it off as blasé.

“It’s just funny to think that we’ve all been played by Michael.” Mark states, letting the words mellow into the air. “I know Michael’s been resetting us, and I’m willing to bet you had no idea.”

“Zuckerberg, why you little sneak. You should quit while you’re ahead.” Michael warns.

Mark doesn’t shake, doesn’t even bat an eye. “I know this is the Bad Place, and I’m okay with it. I just want a do-over, and I want to do it with my memories intact.”

Shawn cackles in response – doesn’t even try to deny it. “You’re really in no place to bargain, tell me why we would do that? Michael’s been on thin ice over this idiotic neighbourhood experiment because he was tired of the good old _traditional torture_ , and you just gave me the perfect excuse to scrap this whole thing and retire everyone.”

Mark wonders briefly what it means to retire people, and why it sounded almost ominous. But right now, he needs to make this work.

“You people, your goal is torture right? Is it not the greatest torture to have to try the same thing millions of times and never get what you want?” Mark asks, point blank.

Shawn looks at Michael, ignoring Mark’s question. Maybe that’s a good sign. “How many times has he been through this? And don’t try to lie your way out of this one.”

“This is the 85th attempt, though there were definitely some promising tries in there.” Michael stammers.

“And all those times, you’ve been thwarted by what, this _human?_ I told you this would not be sustainable, getting them to torture each other for eternity and you couldn’t even manage what, 10% of a bearimy?” Shawn sneers.

“He’s persistent, and stubborn. But the torture has been real, I assure you. Figuring out he’s being tortured doesn’t mitigate the pain.”

_Think like the competitor, give them what they want, knowing what you want._

“Michael’s right. Knowing doesn’t change anything. It won’t make me act differently; it can’t make me feel differently.” Mark cuts in. His heart’s beating so fast, but he has to push through. In a smaller voice, Mark pulls out the last weapon in his arsenal – the truth.

“He won’t even look at me. I – this will hurt me, much more than it hurts him, remembering this. Eduardo, I – knowing any of this won’t make him forgive me, it … won’t make him love me.” Mark is acutely aware now, of how it felt when Eduardo had uttered _my father won’t even look at me._ He doesn’t even register how much he feels those pathetic words until he says them in front of two demons, bent on turning his emotions against him. That the pain of Eduardo leaving, of him _dying_ was akin to heartbreak, and love is the weakness Eduardo had been too afraid to double down on.

Shawn narrows his eyes at Michael, and after the world’s longest pause, _snickers_. “After all this time, I think I finally understand why you’re so fascinated with humans. This could be amusing, make it happen.”

Michael immediately protests: “You know this brat is just going to come rushing in here for a reboot every time things don’t go his way right?”

Shawn locks eyes with Mark, who still feels so very weary despite getting what he wants. He wonders if this is how other people in the world feel, when they reach a goal that arose out of convenience and not truly one that would bring them joy.

“That’s fine. After all, there’s no way for them to escape this, and so if he wants to fail over and over again and remember each botched attempt in painstaking detail, who am I to stop him?” It’s devious, and it’s brilliant, and that’s what Mark was counting on. He’ll become better, and he’s going to flip this system on their face.

And it will be okay, because Mark’s not going to fail.


	8. Definition of Insanity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to lie, I probably wrote this entire story just so I could write this chapter. It's one of my favourite concepts to toy with and the rest of this fic was more or less built around this haha.

_eighty-six_

Mark wakes up, and he remembers. Not only the last try, but all the ones before that. The vertigo catches him by surprise, spilling over his head like a thick sludge. So many attempts, so many, where while the premise changes, it always ends the same.

When he walks into Michael’s office, they don’t say anything to each other. Neither of them is terribly happy with this arrangement, Mark discerns.

He goes to the mansion and waits for Eduardo to arrive. When he does, Mark doesn’t say anything here either. He can’t mess this up if he doesn’t speak right?

Eduardo does the same, same as many times before, choosing to file away their history in favour of civility. Mark just stares - he remembers, how in all those 85 reboots, how Eduardo’s only kissed him once. The one time that Mark let it slip that it doesn’t matter what goes down if they always end up right before a factory reset. That’s when Eduardo decided to fuck it all and act how he feels. Mark thinks of Chris’ outburst, how that in some way led him to where he is now.

“Why are you staring at me like that Mark?”

Mark’s never been in love before, he realizes. Until he blurted those words out at Shawn, he couldn’t put words to the emotion, couldn’t voice what he was fiercely fighting for. It feels so foreign, and stupid, that even if they felt the same fundamental emotion, that they could be so divided on so many other fronts. Movies be damned, love doesn’t conquer all especially when you’re in hell.

Besides, Mark was full of himself once upon a time, but Eduardo’s feelings were never a guarantee. Until Eduardo was being escorted out by security, until he had whispered “I’ll try” to Mark (however many tries ago), until Eduardo was moaning into his mouth and physically peeling himself away – it was never a sure thing. Even now, it’s not a sure thing, because Eduardo is not static. He has boundless warmth and passion, in ways Mark probably will never understand. He doesn’t know how to deal with Eduardo, not even with eighty-five slightly different versions of him under his belt, because being in love with someone and acting on it to success are two entirely separate things. After all, once, he had realized they were in the Bad Place because Eduardo offhandedly said dating Mark was literally the stuff of nightmares.

“I’m sad that you’re here.” Mark settles for.

“I’m sad we’re dead too Mark.” Eduardo replies after a pause. He could’ve taken it a multitude of ways, but he chose the safest.

 _I mean that you don’t deserve to be here._ Mark thinks but remains silent.

Like a powder keg, their peace exploded a month later when Mark tested his theory and claimed Eduardo was still in love with him. Eduardo slammed his pi day pie in Mark’s face and walked away. Take one.

_eighty-seven_

“Fork you Mark, how dare you say – who would be so forking _full of themselves?_ ” Eduardo snarls.

“You haven’t said no.” Mark states pointedly, biting back hope.

“No. I’m not in love with you Mark, you _ashhole._ ”

Mark knows that each version of Eduardo is the same, and this one should be just as angry, should be throwing a sarcastic insult his way, or another pie (though it isn’t pi day this time). This one sounds angry, yes, stomping away in fact, and now running. This Eduardo though, is fighting tears; this one Mark is convinced, is a liar.

_ninety-nine_

This time, Eduardo had chucked his laptop at him in sweet irony, even though Janet can literally just recreate it from nothingness. Eduardo did it anyway for poetic justice, or some sick satisfaction he’s pretty sure. Mark doesn’t blame him. It was Mark’s fault, he still haven’t found the fine line between stating a truth and making it personable.

Somewhere out there, Mark is sure Michael and Shawn are having a grand old laugh over this, if they were watching, which they certainly were.

Mark picks himself back up, marches to the office, with a dull pounding in his chest and wondering if how many selfish tries he can get before he takes it seriously.

_How do you apologize the right way? How do you start over when you’re so far scarred there isn’t fresh skin to touch?_

“Again.” He says firmly.

_one-hundred_

This won’t be the one that counts, but Mark owes them this much.

“Dustin likes you, and you might not think you like him like that, but you should. You’ll be happier for it.” Mark tells Chris, the night of the gala.

They don’t always do the gala anymore – Mark assumes some of the demon actors have probably gotten bored, but whenever they do, Mark can’t escape the fallout. He tries to walk away, not do the speech, hold his ground. Somehow the questions still come up, and he has no good answers. Eduardo had apologized to _him_ three reboots ago, said he always knew he wasn’t good enough for Facebook but it was another thing to have Mark feel the same way, how he lashed out and made it personal when it wasn’t but he couldn’t help it. Mark felt like he got sucker-punched because hearing it points out a truth he’s always known. Eduardo took it personally because to him, it was always personal, and to Mark – why _didn’t_ he take it personally? A real punch would’ve been preferable to that gut-wrenching realization, so he promptly left a bewildered Eduardo to go push the redo button like the coward he was.

So, it’s pointless anyway. After this, Mark will either make a fool of himself, or Eduardo will get into a screaming match with him in his perfectly tailored suit, and Chris and Dustin will definitely fall all over themselves trying to prevent the inevitable combustion.

If so, even if they won’t remember, the happiness they’ll experience is still real, isn’t it?

“What are you saying?” Chris asks.

“You should give him a chance. Please.” Mark adds. Chris takes the bait; Mark almost never asks for favours.

(He’d come to tell Chris the truth many times going forward, and Chris doesn’t always choose to go for it with Dustin with that information. It makes Mark question which ending is right, and which moments stick).

_one-twenty-seven_

“I’m sorry Wardo.”

“For what?”

He still doesn’t have a good answer.

_one-fifty_

Eduardo doesn’t pull away – in fact, he pushes deeper, digging his fingers into the crease above Mark’s hip, teething at his collarbone.

“You know, I thought about doing this, ah - that night.” Eduardo pants into the crook of Mark’s neck. They don’t meet eyes – Mark thinks that intensity would burn right through his skull.

“W-what?” Mark asks into the ceiling.

“I was so angry at you; I was soaking wet. I honestly wanted to just slam you against that hallway and be done with it, with us. At least I’d know then where we stand.” Eduardo breathes, throaty, agonizingly, and it shoots right to Mark’s cock. Especially now that Eduardo was making fast work of his zipper, kneeing between his legs.

“Wardo,” Mark squeezes his eyes shut, throws his head back. “You know where we stand.”

“No, I don’t think I do.” Eduardo whispers, and sinks down.

Mark throws his head back as the world dissolves in warmth around him. Eduardo’s merciless but not harsh, and he sucks the words right out of Mark with a sweep of his tongue. Mark already knows what this is, doesn’t kid himself when he marched right up to Eduardo to kiss him without words. Mark knows where they stand, his lips dry and lonely. He _knows_ how delicate and _temporary_ this is, and yet – he can’t help himself. He’s probably doomed, now that he’s pushed this far, it’s only a matter of time before he goes further.

Mark tangles his fingers in Eduardo’s hair, and bucks his hips forward.

_one-fifty-one_

Mark’s not going to delude himself what this reset’s going to be about. The sex was good, too good. To think he was satisfied with a kiss, now that he knows that Eduardo blows way better than he kisses and _swallows_ like Mark’s doing him a favour.

Mark hates himself for it, just enough. It isn’t enough to deter him though, when he comes onto Eduardo in the living room, gets on his knees and mouths at Eduardo’s crotch. He’s taking advantage, he knows, because the Eduardo he knows wouldn’t bring himself to say no to this.

This Eduardo tries, valiantly. This Eduardo fails, when he comes all over Mark’s face, stumbling back to examine how he marked _Mark._

“Did you like that?” Eduardo heaves in disbelief. Eduardo’s angry with himself, Mark understands.

Mark nods. Eduardo’s the most real when he loses control.

_Hate me, ruin me, take me, if that is what you want. I always have tomorrow._

_one-fifty-nine_

Mark’s done this enough times now to know what Eduardo likes, what drives him wild, what he cannot resist. It becomes a thrill, how he can tempt Eduardo out of his guarded self, make him say yes to this, all of this. He wants to savour this tightness, this heat, how it burns electric through his nerves like they are atoning and falling apart and together all at once.

“Wardo – please.”

“Mark…” Eduardo groans his name like it’s a hollow promise, skin flush against skin. It feels like they’re a wreckage without hope for repair, the way Eduardo puts all of himself into this. It’s pitiful how empty Eduardo sounds, when Mark is so full.

It doesn’t matter how much they crave it, the way they fall into each other like a collapsing supernova.

Eduardo fucks him like he’s still in pain, like he’ll never get Mark out of his system. They’re playing right into Shawn’s hands.

The next reset will be different, Mark promises himself. He can live without this, without the ghost of Eduardo’s touch saying all the words they can’t bring to say out loud, how they both want and don’t want something so powerfully devastating. He can survive, without knowing how it feels to be so intimately inside Eduardo, without hearing Eduardo beg for him the way Mark’s certain he would if he got the chance.

(He cheats a few times, like a drug addict would. It’s a kind of relapse that hurts and heals him.)

_two-o-four_

Mark discovers the Medium Place by accident, and this time he chooses to come here with Dustin. Mindy is not pleased with sharing her space with them and makes a throwaway comment about why Mark never brings cocaine like she asks him to. Mark scoffs.

“Why’d you bring me here?” Dustin asks, making a face at the warm beer in his hand.

“Thought we needed a break from our soulmates and eternal hell.” Mark replies. He already filled Dustin in along the train ride.

“Why? Yours actually likes you while mine is playing chicken.” Dustin sighs.

“You think Wardo likes me?” Mark asks blankly. He knows it now definitively, but it’s the first Dustin’s said anything to him.

“Chris isn’t convinced but I am. Pretty sure he’s loved you since Harvard, probably still loves you - more than he hates you at least.” Dustin’s words roll off so nonchalant, like a placated truth.

“It’s more complicated than that.” Mark says.

“Yeah yeah, but all he’s really wanted was to sort out your differences. I think he’d be happy to know that you’re trying so hard to make it perfect.” Dustin’s a sappy romantic, but so is Eduardo probably.

_two-eighty-two_

“I love you.” Mark had confessed, dryly, morosely.

Mark tested saying it, just to see how it sounded like. It’s taken him so long to come to terms to, yet it gets approximately the same reaction as claiming Eduardo loves him. Maybe it doesn’t matter who loves whom, who says what, if in the end their pieces don’t fit right.

Seems like loving and hating Eduardo tears him apart equally. Mark realizes this may be his Bad Place, but it is Eduardo’s too. Michael’s a genius, and Mark’s going to break him.

_three-forty-five_

The definition of insanity is trying something over and over again and expecting different results is it not? Mark had been awake many a night musing over the butterfly effect, how long it’d last.

Eduardo is the same, but Mark isn’t. He can compile all this info and figure him out. Isn’t that how humans work? It feels faintly like cheating, like if he tried all the words in the world and dumped them into an apology then Eduardo would react positively to at least some of them.

He doesn’t need to type it out anymore. It floats in his consciousness, committed permanently to a part of him. Through so many attempts, Mark is painfully aware. He knows Eduardo was instrumental to Facebook and he hasn’t expressed that well, he knows that Eduardo closed the account to get his attention, and he got it, focusing on the act instead of the motivation. He knows that Eduardo is painfully aware of his flaws, especially in hindsight, that Eduardo wasn’t right for Facebook, couldn’t balance things but damn did he want to be. But Eduardo couldn’t admit that then, and Mark couldn’t say it out loud.

Every time, Mark gets a bit closer to the whole picture. He delicately weaves through the minefield that is their history, blows up later and later, runs into new problems he didn’t even know they had. It took him almost twenty reboots to unknot the Phoenix, and he’s still working on Sean, a bomb in himself. He doesn’t agree with everything Eduardo says, but Eduardo’s thought about this a lot more than he has it seems, and Mark has a lot of catch up to do.

_four-thirty_

Mark doesn’t cry. He honestly really prides himself that he can get through any problem without a collapsing emotional lung.

But he can’t, not when everything feels futile and wrong, not when he sees shadows of Dustin’s hand wrapped in Chris’ and the blur of Eduardo’s smile turned dark at every corner. He can’t remember the combinations but finds it hard to forget them altogether when they’re jumbled in tangled strings and lifetimes.

Shawn was right, he’s stupid for thinking this would help when they have the upper hand and can stop this little experiment within an experiment (this _game_ ) at any time.

_four-thirty-one_

When he kisses Eduardo this time, he tries to be so gentle, tries to convey _this is love_ without saying it. This is why – they’ll be okay – he’s going to get us out of this, plan or no plan. He’ll carry this burden, he’ll set Eduardo free.

“I – are you sure?” Eduardo moans into it, pleading like he wants to hear yes and no at the same time.

“Yes, I kissed you, that’s what this means.” Mark kisses against the nape of his neck to leave hickeys the next Eduardo won’t have, grazes his teeth against his jugular the way Eduardo likes. Mark moves to cup Eduardo’s jaw and stares into Eduardo’s shaking, wide, beautiful eyes. So many iterations have given him confidence, and seeing Eduardo wanting him gives him courage to keep going, to not quit like he promised Chris. Eduardo needs this, as much as Mark does, only he doesn’t know it as deeply.

“I’m glad.”

It never lasts too long when it starts with sex. Somewhere between self-loathing and an existential crisis, they drift apart. It isn’t a fight though, but it feels just as excruciating. Mark feels it first and leaves one morning with a kiss to Eduardo’s temple before he wakes up. But somewhere in that, the two of them _fit_ , and that’s worth dipping back into an old habit.

_five-twenty_

He sits through this one just piling the stats together, watching as Chris and Dustin dance at “prom”. It’s peaceful, and it’s kind.

It makes him feel like shit, when he decides Eduardo’s pain is greater than Chris and Dustin’s happiness, like he’s done so many times before. Shawn sneers at Mark, enjoying this version of walk of shame far more than he should really. It’s been over five hundred times, don’t demons have better things to do?

 _What about your pain?_ A voice asks.

It’s been negligible since I asked for this, hasn’t it? Mark muses. Each failure is painful, but more placid. But that’s understandable – he deserves to be here, Eduardo doesn’t.

_five-fifty-eight_

This reboot is stupid, Mark thinks, right before he falls asleep.

Mark had said sorry, Eduardo had said he forgave him, and they were just about to hug and let bygones be bygones when Michael, of all people, put the brakes on them. Mark had somehow forgotten that he’s not the only one with a finger on the switch, and if he were ever to succeed, they’d kill it in an instant.

What would happen then?

(He tries it again a few more times and tries to convince himself Eduardo does forgive him. The déjà vu of it all confuses Mark, and he doesn’t say that same combination of words again. It feels like a dream, to have it come so easily.)

_six-twelve_

He tells both Chris and Dustin this time.

“Why don’t you ever tell Wardo?” Chris asks at last, after accepting that this was attempt number 612.

“Who likes broadcasting their failures? Besides, he wouldn’t get it. I’ve done the whole _you only live once_ crap more times than once, and it ends in the same place. Does it matter if he knows?”

“Why tell us then man?” Dustin chimes in.

“Mindy isn’t a great person but you’ll be better off here. I have to go.”

“You’re going back for Wardo?” Dustin again, softer.

“He might be happier if I don’t come back, but then Shawn and Michael wins, and I can’t have that.” Mark says firmly.

_He’ll be happier but I won’t be._

“If you don’t tell him, he won’t want to come here.” Chris reminds him.

“You know that’s an oxymoron, don’t you?” Mark mutters. If he tells Eduardo, he won’t want to come here either. The Medium Place isn’t the answer, it never was but it’s a good soft spot to stop on.

“Yes! So what, why don’t you try? You’ve told me and Chris so many times, I’m sure it must get tiring but you still do it, so why not tell Wardo? Even if it just ends poorly, there’s always next time, right?”

That’s how he thought before, and how Eduardo had thought, when he had kissed him the first time. When Eduardo had bruised him hard enough that he’s standing here now, six hundred times later, still wondering if this is really the best he can do.

He wants Eduardo to kiss him first, wants to feel his touch the way he hasn’t felt intimately for almost fifty reboots now (his self-control only goes so far). Mark dreams of Eduardo initiating because that would mean he’s okay with having Mark that way in their future (their _only_ future), the way Mark craves the longer he lives without it.

He can’t tell Eduardo; that would defeat the purpose.

_seven-o-three_

“You should really tell him.” Chris nags.

“Must I?” Mark replies, drained.

“Yes, and I’m pretty sure our other selves would’ve said the same. Besides, aren’t you tired of living through the same shirt? Telling Eduardo would be a new thing, think about it like switching things up.” Dustin joins.

Mark looks at the two of them, a wave of gratefulness washing over him. It’s so incredibly taxing living through this, but somehow it never bothers him to have to explain it to Chris and Dustin. He’s been doing it more now, and while he almost never takes their advice when it comes to Eduardo (the same goddamn advice), it’s nice having a sounding board that isn’t Janet and his laptop.

“Yeah, I’m tired of starting over.” Mark admits.

Dustin smiles at him, and grabs Mark’s hand, piles it on top of his and Chris’ like they’re about to declare a battle cry before a sports game.

“It’s us, and while we’re different, we’re also the same. So, we’ll never really be starting over, right?”


	9. Fold or Call

_seven-o-four_

Mark opens his eyes. Michael’s door is already open, as it usually is nowadays. Mark glances sideways into the room and reads today’s face as sour with a side of exhaustion. He’s not the only one.

“Same as usual?” Mark calls out, not even bothering to walk to the room.

“More or less.” Michael rolls his eyes and walks to shut the door on Mark’s face. Nothing has changed.

* * *

In this iteration, Eduardo has already settled into the master bedroom and has fallen into a pure fascination with Janet. He always is, filled with the kind of bright unadulterated curiosity Mark’s long lost after having committed everything from this damn neighbourhood to memory. Mark looks around; the mansion is the same. In a few reboots, they’ve done some makeovers, split him and Eduardo apart, even threw in some fake relationships in the mix. But either from a pure annoyance or actual results produced from keeping things the same, they’ve left Mark and Eduardo together as soulmates more often than not in this lonesome mansion of a home.

Eduardo’s eyes peak up in caution when he sees Mark at the bottom of the stairs, and Mark feels his heart catch in his throat.

“So, uhm, hi.” Eduardo starts.

“Hi Wardo.” Mark says. Statistically speaking, Eduardo has a pretty low chance of fighting back on the nickname if Mark pops it in at the beginning. Mark’s never gotten good at getting the first syllable back, so he’s given up on trying.

“There’s a gala tonight, Michael asked if he could host it here since our place is so big. I said yes, thought you should know.” Eduardo says. Ah, going with the gala this time around.

“Did he ask you to ask me to give a speech or something?” Mark tosses out.

Eduardo’s eyes widen ever so slightly; Mark makes his way up the stairs to see better. “Actually yes, did he mention it to you already?”

Mark shrugs. “He implied it, but I’m going to pass.”

Eduardo laughs. “It’s going to be here, it’s not like you have an excuse to say no.”

Mark cracks a smirk in return. He hasn’t done this in a while, but the few times he has, Eduardo had always said yes.

“How about we make sure we’re not here then?”

* * *

This Eduardo is just as easy as previous versions of him, happy to start off on the right foot by not stepping on any landmines, takes all of Mark’s olive branches with a soft tentative care. When Mark asked him to ditch the gala, he was initially hesitant, but Mark brushed that away by insisting that he’s sorted it all out with Michael. He hadn’t of course, that was the best part of it.

“You better have a good reason for taking me out of an opportunity to wear a tux Mark.” Eduardo teases. His heart’s not in it, but the gesture is trusting. Mark always liked Eduardo this way – it reminds him what fragile ice he’s standing on. It reminds him, that at any given moment, Eduardo could choose to give up on this decorum they’ve trapped themselves in without realizing. There’s a delicate tightrope that Mark walks, a simple fact that Mark’s spent hundreds of reboots convincing himself of – that Eduardo _wants to forgive him._ Mark just has to give him a reason to, because he’s also very cognizant of the fact that it’s a two-way street, that he’s harboured some negative feelings towards Eduardo too.

But he’s had the curse (and the privilege) of learning he’s forgiven Eduardo long ago. He’s on the right side of a one-way mirror, and Eduardo is flying blind because he doesn’t know what Mark knows. Dustin’s right: it’s never really starting over when it comes to them.

He just needs to tell Eduardo, right? That would end all the hiding, the secrets, if he just spilled the mountains of dirt piled up inside his mind, cycles and cycles of the two of them wrapped together and chopped apart. That’s why he took Eduardo out here, to the lake where the stars are the clearest and the sound quietest.

“You alright?” Eduardo snaps him out of it.

“Yeah, sorry, I figured you shouldn’t be wearing a tux here.” They’re on the dock, Mark in slacks and a cozy zip-up, Eduardo in jeans and a windbreaker.

“Probably not, but you want to enlighten me why we’re here instead of drinking ourselves silly?”

“I wouldn’t want you to be drunk for this.” Mark replies simply.

“And this is?” Eduardo squats down, swings his legs down right above the water and pushes his gaze towards the other side of the lake in a sea of a darkness.

“I wanted to set some things straight.” Mark lowers himself to join Eduardo. There are light ripples in the water, peace in the breeze. “I know I’m not who you wanted to see in heaven, but apart from the fact that we’re both dead, I’m happy to see you here.”

“You are? I didn’t realize you still thought of me.” Eduardo’s self-confidence is like the wind, wavers depending on any given day and Mark used to take it for granted. Now he hates how much pull he still has on it.

“Of course I do. I know we didn’t leave things in the best of places, but I still cared, I still care about you.” Mark’s probably said a variation of this line hundreds of times, but it still sounds wrong to his ears, like a blurry afterimage of what he should expect. Just because he has hundreds of routes scratched down on maps doesn’t mean any of them are right.

“I care about you too, but it’s not that easy to go back to how things were if that’s what you wanted.” Eduardo sighs.

Mark blinks, turns his head to see Eduardo leaning back staring at the stars.

“I don’t want to go back to how things were.” Mark’s still used to speaking in short phrases, but now he takes the time to absorb the in between reactions as he chips through the list of things he wanted to leave Eduardo with. _I’m sorry, I love you, I’m still fighting a battle you don’t even know exists._

“You don’t?”

“We weren’t good for each other back then. I’m hoping we can be now.” Mark settles for. It’s too early, to let the rest flood out. Eduardo is as perceptive as he’s ever been and just nods, drops it with a soft chuckle, relieved.

“So how’d you find this place?”

You actually found it, so many lifetimes ago, Mark thinks.

“I asked Janet for some nice date spots to take my soulmate to.” Mark lies easily and prepares to relish in Eduardo’s sputtering embarrassment. That one’s a certainty; Eduardo never expects that Mark would bring up the soulmate thing first. But he does, because if Mark accepts it, then Eduardo accepts it too. It would make sense then, when Mark confesses for real. Eduardo would take him seriously, wouldn’t accuse him of screwing with him with such venom in his voice.

Besides, it didn’t take long before Mark figured out soulmates are a lie, like the rest of this place, just adding fuel to the fire.

Eduardo flushes as expected. “Well, the stars _are_ very nice here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous Wardo, they’re beautiful.” Mark replies, and he means it.

* * *

Eduardo didn’t expect to run into Mark like this. It’s one thing to learn that he’s dead, but to spend that afterlife with Mark as a soulmate is quite another. Eduardo’s a romantic sure, but he wouldn’t have pegged the universe to be the driving force behind his incessant infatuation with Mark.

It’s not infatuation, he reminds himself. If it was, it wouldn’t be so hard.

It’s been maybe two months now, and Eduardo is surprised at how much he’s enjoying it here. He looks forwards to his happy hours with Chris over a book, laughing with Dustin on a hike or a swim or while rollerblading. Dustin’s a big fan of moving around.

He’s mostly surprised at how much Mark’s seamlessly melted himself back into his life. There are times where Eduardo fights his urge to fight back at how Mark juts in with his opinion, and there are others where he lets it loose only to have Mark diffuse it.

Eduardo still remembers that first night, when they played hooky to go out to a far away lake. Mark had sat underneath bright moonlight and more or less offered his hand – he hadn’t apologized, but it was more than Eduardo had ever expected. For Mark to make the first move, that gesture would have made the old Eduardo swoon. Now he’s just touched, counts his blessings for the second chance he’s been given, and tries to rein in his pulsing feelings from flying too far out of control.

But there’s something missing, a nagging feeling he can’t shake. It comes to him when Mark doesn’t even try to mention Facebook, brushes aside it like it wasn’t his baby, his life. That’s weird, is it not?

“Maybe he’s finally come to terms with the fact that no internet means he can’t push any more code through to Facebook.” Chris suggests.

“I think seeing ghost code appear out of nowhere would be bad even if there was internet.” Dustin says with a mouth full of food.

“This is _Mark_ we’re talking about.” Eduardo argues.

“Yeah and we’re both completely serious.” Dustin replies.

“What Dustin _means_ to say is, Mark’s always been very practical. Facebook isn’t very practical here, and he’s been I guess pivoting away from it?”

“Into what?” Eduardo asks.

Chris and Dustin share a knowing glance, and Eduardo suddenly feels uneasy.

“You? Wait, have you not realized?” Dustin exclaims, putting aside his slightly burnt garlic bread.

“Realized what?”

“He’s been super attentive to you, maybe even thoughtful, though I can never really tell. You had to have noticed too. I’m sure you didn’t expect to get along so swimmingly when this all first started.” Chris explains gently.

Eduardo pauses and absorbs the words: fleeting hugs, avoidance of touchy subjects, a softness that he’s never associated with Mark before death.

“I mean, yeah he’s seemed a bit off.” Eduardo admits.

“Maybe he’s just maturing.” Chris suggests.

Eduardo doesn’t really question it. He’s never thought Mark was childish by any means, if anything a bit too much of the opposite, lacked some compassion in some instances. This though, if he had to think about it, gestured to what most people would call making amends, without saying it.

But it’s not like that. Mark was playing along, pretending, tiptoeing some invisible line that they arbitrarily drew in the sand.

Mark doesn’t need to mature.

He’s just scared of the alternative. Just like Eduardo.

* * *

“Hey Janet?” Eduardo calls out in the living room.

“Hi Eduardo.” Janet appears with a bing, with nothing but helpfulness in her eyes.

“I have a question. Do you think Mark is sorry? About the dilution?” Eduardo asks this, knowing Janet has no good answer. He asks it out loud, to hear it ring back in his ears. Janet’s just a convenient sounding board.

Janet purses her lips, as if in thought for just a moment. It’s a bit peculiar, because she is by all accounts and purposes just a very powerful machine, but Eduardo sees a glimpse of something so human in the way she pretends to think, as if she’s rearranging her thoughts to answer a question that’s not in her job description.

“I don’t think it matters what I think, and I don’t really think that’s what you want to know.” She says, gentle as always but without the usual chipper attitude.

Eduardo shrugs. “It was badly worded. I was more asking about, well, if you would know if he was sorry.”

Janet sits down on the couch next to him. They’re close enough to almost touch.

“I know. But you also know that this is something you shouldn’t be asking me.” Janet responds.

Eduardo does. He really does.

It’s like eventually, something unspoken will eat them up inside. That’s what Eduardo thinks, when he sits down at the dinner table that night. That’s what he decides, when he drums up his courage.

“Can we talk?” Eduardo asks. Mark’s already sweeping the dirty dishes off the table when he looks up, slightly quizzical.

“Yeah what’s up?”

“Uhm, let’s finish up first.”

Mark opens his mouth to follow up, but ultimately closes it with a solemn nod.

Eduardo gulps nervously when he meets Mark eye to eye on the sofa. He doesn’t know how to start, he really doesn’t. He’s afraid still, of ruining what has been a very much good thing.

“So?” Mark breaks the silence. He doesn’t sound impatient, but rather apprehensive. Eduardo takes it as a good sign.

“I wanted to, it’s really hard to explain, dang, I, you’ve been _different_ lately, well no since the beginning. It’s not a bad thing! I just, it feels weird, us not talking about … it.” Eduardo practically vomits out the mess of tangled words. He can’t take it back; he’s breached the topic, the stronghold.

Mark stares at him, and Eduardo’s suddenly hyperaware of all the times he’s longed for Mark’s eyes to be focused solely on him, how big an ego trip that really was. Mark had a way about him when it came to that, or just towards Eduardo (he was never truly sure).

“You mean, you want to talk about it?” Mark asks hesitantly.

Eduardo feels the distance between them expand in slow motion.

“Were you, uhm, waiting for me to be okay?” Eduardo says.

“…you could say that.”

“Then yes. I do.”

Mark’s shoulders slump, like a weight has been lifted off his back. He sharply inhales deeply once, twice. Then he speaks.

“I’m sorry.” The two words first out of Mark’s mouth are not what Eduardo expects, nor are they really the apology Eduardo’s been hoping for. It comes out of the blue, (unless Janet somehow rewired Mark’s brain), with nothing more, nothing less. Eduardo doesn’t know what else he’s waiting for, but he waits nonetheless.

But Mark doesn’t continue on. The thin air between them stretches out further, sitting at a standstill.

Eduardo gulps again. Was Mark waiting for him after all?

“Mark, I’m - ”

“Wardo. It’s okay.”

_What?_

Mark places his hand on top of Eduardo’s and continues to talk. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while, probably too long. I thought about how you said I wouldn’t be likely to apologize for the right thing, so I needed to find out what that was. I’ve been very technical about this in the past, picking battles. We both forked up, trying to get back at each other when, uh, l’m getting off track. What I mean to say is, Wardo, and I should’ve said this all along: I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I didn’t see you.”

Eduardo suddenly feels so, very, dizzy. His throat is dry, and he swears his eyes are tearing. It feels like Mark had reached into his soul and dug out the lodged piece that was the source of his heartache. It’s so fucking simple, he can even put words to it himself.

_He wanted to be seen by Mark, in the way only Mark could give._

“Wardo? Are you…crying?” A part of Mark’s voice cracks, like he doesn’t know quite what to do. Fair enough, since they’ve never cried in front of each other before.

“I’m just, fork Mark, you have no idea how much I needed to hear that.” He whispers. His hand feels hot against Mark’s.

“Of course I do.” It sounds the same, even years later, lighting up the chambers of his heart simply because Mark _gets him_ , once in a while, and it hits hard.

Eduardo sniffs into a light smile. “I just never thought you would think to – wait, you said I told you, and that in the past, but, we’ve n-never talked about this.” His voice drops off as his mind descends into fog, confusion laced like poison all over his tongue. Mark squeezes his hand reassuringly, taking Eduardo out of his reverie.

“That’s next. I’m just going to come out and say it. We’ve been through this before, this is do-over number 704. That’s what I meant, by taking time. I’ve taken a long time.”

Eduardo blinks. “How is that possible? I don’t remember having been here before.”

“It’s only for me.”

“…why?”

Mark stalls for a moment, closing his eyes.

“I asked for it. They said yes because it would hurt me more than it would help me.”

Eduardo frowns. “Why would they want to hurt you?”

Mark grumbles something under his breath. Eduardo repeats the question, even though his heart’s beating so fast that he’s half-convinced not to.

“Because, they’re demons and we’re in the Bad Place and well, I told you we were on reboot 704, which means that they’ve had some great times watching me fall apart in front of you.” Mark says with a side of venom, partially offset by his classic sarcasm.

Eduardo pulls his palm back, rounds back to really look at Mark. He searches for any semblance of deceit, any chance that Mark’s just pulling one over his head as a cruel joke of some sort. Mark’s not like that, and his eyes don’t lie like that, not when they look jaded and broken.

Like those of a man fighting a losing battle. Like he’s lost that battle already seven hundred and three times.

Eduardo’s always been a good friend. His heart leaps up by instinct and he trusts because there was never any reason not to before. He’s changed since then, and he never thought he’d be foolish enough to blindly trust Mark again. But here he was, wanting to, moving on autopilot like it’s his default option, desperately wanting to fall back into something familiar, now that Mark has cleared the air.

He wants to believe Mark with every fiber of his being, because Mark says only what he has to. He’s telling Eduardo this for a reason, more than he’s letting on.

But Eduardo doesn’t _want to believe him_ at the same time. How can his heart feel so full and wrecked all at once, when the delicate pieces of their friendship are coming to a mend in a repeated rendition of hell?

“Mark, can you prove it to me?”

Mark chuckles, low and dark. “I can do more than that.”

* * *

“So yeah, that outrageous house of Dustin’s was pretty much designed to torture Chris, and so’s this place. That’s why there’s only one real bedroom.” Mark explains. It feels like a relief, saying these words in a way that was meant for Eduardo to hear. Eduardo’s warm brown eyes are zoned into his words, taking it a lot better than he had the first and last time Mark had divulged the information. Albeit they weren’t making out – that might be a minus.

Eduardo nods. “That always struck me as odd too, I guess they wanted us to go to bed angry?”

“Wouldn’t be surprised. That happened a few times, and the opposite some other times, I mean.” Mark coughs.

“What’s the opposite of angry? Did you what, apologize to me over and over again in bed or something? That’s not very romantic Mark.” Eduardo teases him lightly.

Mark stutters. He’s already said so much, what’s one more? He can allow this right, this temporarily weakness, as temporary as this fleeting moment where he can be honest with Eduardo. It already makes him feel so whole.

“No we had some good runs. You’re very good in bed you know?” Mark replies. He tries to go for his characteristic snark, but he fucks up the delivery because it’s hard to joke about that. He hadn’t had sex with Eduardo in a reboot for so long he’s lost count, but it doesn’t mitigate the fact that he is. Maybe he should’ve led with some context Mark realizes, as he sees Eduardo’s pupils dilate and his mouth sputter.

“W- what the fork Mark? You mean to say – that _we?”_ Eduardo gapes. Mark doesn’t miss how his eyes flickered up and down Mark’s body before averting away in a huff.

“Well, is that so hard to believe?” Mark asks, a bit quieter. It isn’t for him, and he knows for a fact that it’s not for Eduardo either. They’ve wanted it enough times, done it enough times that it’s just one of those things he marks down as part of his natural reality.

Eduardo shakes his head. “No, listen I don’t know what my past behaviour was like, but I definitely didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I know we were shirt at communicating, so shirt that you had to relive this seven hundred times and I don’t know in how many of those I actually did a good job but I just want to say sorry for all that, if I somehow put you through that _._ ” Eduardo runs through in one breath, and it suddenly hits Mark how Eduardo took his statement. Eduardo doesn’t know how Mark feels, probably thinks he took advantage or some crap in the name of torture.

“Wardo, we were pretty shirt at communicating. It took me so long because I thought I was looking for some magic touch point, whether you were hung up on Sean or the ads or California. But it wasn’t any of it. It was because it was me and you, and I tried to fix the symptoms not the disease.” Mark swallows. “I hurt you so much you fled to the other side of the world. I hurt you so much, that you couldn’t bear to love me for longer than a day at a time, so I kept rewinding back for more. You didn’t put me through anything, I wanted this.”

Eduardo inhales, long and deep. “You wanted it?” His face is red, though Mark can’t imagine why. He already confirmed Eduardo’s a catch, and he of all people would know every facet of Eduardo at this point. Mark has nothing to hide, nothing to lie about anymore.

“I did. I still do.” Mark reaffirms, nodding.

Eduardo visibly shudders. His arm is shaking as he reaches out to catch Mark’s shoulder. Mark leans in to close the gap. It’s such a familiar sight, like a blast down nostalgia lane, when he meets Eduardo’s pupils – blown and shining like ambers and a lit flame.

“For the record, we’re both idiots and I’m not living through that again. So, I’m going to set things straight. It took me dying to realize that I was hurting over you so much because I love you. I love you enough to live through this seven hundred more times, if that’s what it takes. You don’t have to say it back, I already know.”

Eduardo takes in Mark’s declaration with silence, and then a full blown out laugh. “That’s so unfair, I don’t have seven hundred iterations of Mark to benchmark off of. I don’t get to say anything?”

Mark shrugs. “You can say whatever you want to me.”

Eduardo mulls it over for a second, and pulls Mark into a firm hug. “I forgive you, and I’m sorry too.”

Mark melts into it, because that’s about what he wanted to hear. The rest will fall together too.

* * *

The sun peaks out past the curtains. Mark wakes up next to Eduardo in the master, reminiscent of all the other times this has never happened because neither of them could bear it.

“Morning.” Eduardo says, the sunlight illuminating the honey in his eyes. Mark must’ve made a face or another because Eduardo calls him out on it a heartbeat later.

“I’m just surprised we’re still here. You still remember?” Mark mutters.

Eduardo grazes his face. “Why would I forget?”

Mark scowls but leans into the touch. Of all the times he’s had mind-blowing sex with Eduardo, tenderness was rarely ever part of the equation. It’s just as good, if not better, than the desperate clawing they usually go through.

“They tend to not like it when we’re happy together.”

“Maybe they’re just waiting for me to realize I’ve made a horrible mistake.” Eduardo chuckles.

“You can realize that at any time Wardo. They put incompatible people together as soulmates for kicks. We were just so incompatible that we figured out how to beat their system.”

“I wouldn’t call us incompatible so much as doomed to be together. Isn’t that another definition of soulmates? You said it too, that first night.” Eduardo murmurs.

“Yeah, because I thought you would believe it. Wardo, you know soulmates aren’t real right? It’s just another way for them to fork with us.”

“Because I believe it?” Eduardo seems to mull over it for a moment, and then nods. “True, I guess that worked. I was kicking myself over the head with it all the time.”

Mark snorts. “Yeah, you must’ve thought you had the worst luck in the world.”

Eduardo falls away from Mark, flat on his back in a thump. “Yeah, but it was always going to be you if no one else. It convinced me that we were meant to make up somehow, or make out, or both.”

Mark rolls over on top of Eduardo, tangling their legs.

“The first time you kissed me, you said it was a mistake. I really didn’t want it to be. I didn’t want this to be over.”

Eduardo chuckles. “Are you sure you don’t want to keep going? Keep your advantage on me in bed? It’s kind of creepy to be honest.”

“I know, I’m spoiling you. But I’m quite done with this terrible version of groundhog day.” _I’m not letting them take this from me again._

Eduardo raises himself up to his elbows, taking Mark in with a look of worry.

“How are we going to do that? Get out, I mean. You, uh, definitely have more experience dealing with these people, well, demons, than me.” Eduardo asks softly.

Mark sits himself up, straddling Eduardo without a semblance of shame.

“I don’t know yet, but we’re going to get dressed and talk to Chris and Dustin. They’re the reason I told you, so if anything, I owe them some thanks. Maybe they’ll have a bright idea this time too.”

Mark thinks of Chris and Dustin the last reboot, how even though Mark had delivered them news directly from hell, they had moved on to Mark’s pain instead of their own. He thinks of each agonizing reboot, the memories swirling in his head, how many times he was close to slipping. He thinks of Eduardo arched beneath him, eager and pining and shellshocked by how Mark navigated his body. Topping Eduardo though, he fumbled through for the first time – it was frantic and off-pace but it was real, with the possibility of another day, another day to get better at this, now that he’s past how to apologize (he can learn how to better love).

Mark really wants that second day.


	10. A New Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end folks. Thanks for reading along to my first completed multi-chapter fic since...maybe middle school! Quarantine time has been good for my inspiration and I'm glad it led to this fic being completed. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Dustin is typically what most people would call, an optimist. So he’ll chalk it up to that being why the first words out of his mouth after Mark's explanation are “you two are finally banging?”

Eduardo abruptly hides his face and Mark coughs into his sleeve.

“ _That’s_ what you got out of this?” Mark gawks.

“That you spent literally years trapped in a loop to get your Wardo to love you back yes! Oh good I can finally settle that pool with Chris.” Dustin giggles. Chris rolls his eyes in response and makes a tossing motion.

“I hope you remember that there’s no such thing as money in this world Moskovitz.”

“What did you bet on? Wait, I don’t want to know.” Eduardo groans.

Dustin lets out a roaring laugh, one that won’t stop rippling through his body. After what Mark had explained with that glum face of his, Dustin figures they totally could use a chill, mundane conversation.

“Wardo, your lack of denial speaks mountains.” He chokes out, clutching his stomach.

“Mark’s right though, we probably don’t have much time. What’s worked before won’t anymore. Unless we figure out how to permanently get out of this loop, this will be the last time we remember any of this.” Chris rationalizes, snapping Dustin out of his laughter.

“Any bright ideas? You’re the one with all the experience swirling in your head Mark.” Eduardo asks, squeezing Mark’s hand. Dustin inwardly awws, and wonders in how many iterations did he and Chris touch like that, so familiar and loving.

“A few, but I was hoping to run it by you guys before we walk into the devil’s lair.” Mark admits.

“Lay it on me, you came to the right people for help.” Dustin says.

Mark curls his lips down, wry but understanding. “You’re the _only_ people.”

* * *

They’re all sprawled out along the floor of Dustin’s living room in a square, curled up in a mixture of open sleeping bags and Janet-approved blankets. Dustin had suggested it as a “last night throwback” kind of deal, and surprisingly everyone agreed. Mark flopped onto the space next to Eduardo with a content sigh that this was one thing they never did in any of the reboots, while Chris threw out a firm reminder that he better not wake up to any inappropriate noises or movements to a group chuckle. Dustin supplied the snacks earlier as they talked, gamed, and strategized. Maybe more of the first two than the last, Dustin muses, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. As good as it’s going to get is this, the last night before things get more complicated.

If they wake up remembering their plans, things won’t be the same ever again, regardless of if it works out or not. Dustin’s okay with that he thinks, minus the very real possibility that they get thrown into a pit of lava or whatever they have cooking up in the real Bad Place.

But that’s where they were supposed to end up originally right? Before Michael decided this would be a more elaborate, psychological plot. Chris had already pointed this out, that they were on borrowed time.

“Chris, you awake?” Dustin whispers. The body next to him stirs with a mumble.

“…wassup Dustin?”

“If we survive tomorrow with our memories intact, I’d like you to go out with me.” Dustin says.

“This sounds like an if-we-live-to-see-tomorrow kind last ditch request. Is this because Mark said we made it work in our past lives? Or well, we weren’t alive per say…” Chris asks, albeit to the ceiling. He’s got a point, Dustin only felt the courage rise up at the last possible moment. That’s only human.

“Are you doubting my intel Chris?” Mark’s voice rises from near Dustin’s head, subdued despite the words.

“No, I believe you. But we’re us as we are _now_ , and I think all those previous iterations we were flying blind, except for Mark of course. Who’s to say they know what’s best? I’m not turning you down Dustin, I just didn’t want you to think this is a foolproof idea or anything like that.”

Dustin smiles to himself in the dark. It’s about what he expected from Chris, who’s nothing if not overly cautious, a gentleman that lets hearts down easy, so the burn is lighter, cleaner.

“Chris, it’s okay. None of those versions of ourselves was perfect, and who we are right now isn’t either. You know I wanted to try, even before Mark, and I know we aren’t made to be a sure-fire thing. But what’s wrong with taking our experiences and building off of that? Isn’t that what Mark did?”

“It took him a hell of a long time, but yeah. We all need time to figure out our mistakes, he just played the game enough times to get the head start and the cheats.” Eduardo sleepily grumbles from the other side.

Mark bolts up.

“That’s it.”

* * *

Mark is the one who insists they get up right now and rush over to the architect’s office. When Chris groans that this wasn’t the plan but follows anyway, it strikes Dustin that just because Chris brings up a good point doesn’t mean that he’s terribly inclined to listen to himself anymore. Eduardo follows them, because well, Dustin figures it’s been a while since he was a part of a “we”.

And as for Dustin? Dustin goes because this is it, and he gets what Mark gets.

Mark tumbles into the office like it’s his home, and it might be true given how many times he’s been there before. Michael doesn’t even bat an eye, slumped over in the chair twiddling with what seems to be a pile of paperclips. Dustin peeks his head out from behind Mark to take in the room. The last time he was here, he was told that he’s dead and so never really had the capacity to care and to see Michael’s office. There’s a stack of papers on his desk to the corner, and several more on the ground in scattered heaps. Some plants are by the window, mostly cacti and some sagging hanging pot plants dusted with yellow and brown tips.

“You’re back already for – oh. Well this is a surprise.” Michael says as he looks up. He must be finally taking in the fact that for once, Mark has company.

“Had to mix it up. Listen, is Shawn here?” Mark plops himself familiarly into one of the two chairs in front of Michael. Eduardo instinctively moves behind him, like a shadow. Chris and Dustin follow, completing the united front.

“No, he got bored of this after the last update I sent him. I _told_ him what he authorized broke the system down and so obviously the range of torture inflicted wouldn’t vary as much. He told me to come up with a new storyline but he doesn’t understand the _art_ of all of this. It’s not that easy.” Michael rants, which honestly amuses Dustin. He knows now, how hard it must have all been for Mark. But it seems now that the feeling is mutual, and frustrating enough that Michael is letting loose without prompt.

“How long was that ago?” Chris asks.

“Judge for yourself.” Michael answers pathetically, making an offhanded wave towards the – yes, mess of papers in the corner of his office.

Mark steps in now, eyes glistening with something akin to thirst.

“Good. I don’t want him here for this. I think we’ve done this long enough. I hate it, you also clearly hate it. I want to end this.”

It catches Michael’s attention and for a fraction of a second, catches a veneer of hope.

“Great. I’ll wipe you and finally start this mess of a story over again. Shawn won’t like it, but,”

“That’s not what he means.” Dustin interrupts. Michael turns to look at him, and jeers, but Dustin goes on. “It’s not going to work because fundamentally, we don’t _want_ to torture each other.”

Michael raises one eyebrow. “No of course not. That’s the genius of it. You end up doing it anyway because humans are idiotic creatures who can’t help but revert to the base of their messy blueprints.”

Mark stands up, and Dustin gets it right away. He’s furious.

“No, we are not. _I’m not._ Seven hundred tries later and I got _better._ I’m not giving that up, and I think you demons are the idiotic ones for thinking humans don’t change. Even _Janet_ can change.”

Mark stares Michael down and with hitched breath, barks out the words.

“You know I’m right.”

There's a dead silence, and then: 

“Humans aren’t supposed to get better. You’re _dead._ Zuckerberg, you think one lowly apology’s enough to get you to the real Good Place? And Janet, that’s an anomaly. I’m tinkering through it.” Michael spits out. To Dustin, they’re just words, unconvincing.

Eduardo stands and links his hand in Mark’s. Mark turns to him with flashing eyes, concerned but Eduardo beats Mark to the punch.

“He doesn’t think he should be in the Good Place. None of us do.” Eduardo says. This surprises Dustin, because he thought the complete opposite. Why wouldn’t they deserve to be in the Good Place?

Michael cackles in response. “So, what’s the problem here?”

Chris joins the pair now. “We’re not perfect, but we’re capable of improving if we see and remember the errors of our ways. You’ve helped Mark prove that. We just want a chance to plead our case, to prove that humans are capable of change. If the standards of the Good Place are too high, we’d like to re-examine that.”

Of course. Who’s to say what a good person is, and what that cut off means? He’s never been able to get a straight answer out of Janet, but maybe the system was rotten at the core from the start.

Michael groans. “And you want me to _help_ you with that? Why in the world would I do that?”

Dustin’s body is hot with anticipation when he stands up to join his friends. He feels oddly familiar with how Michael feels, the burning need for something to change, for someone to take notice, to break out of the mold they’ve circled themselves into.

“Because you wanted to change the system too. With us, this neighbourhood experiment. And you got more than you bargained for.”

Mark smiles.

“So why not keep going?”

* * *

They manage to convince Michael that there’s at least something there. He doesn’t like it at all, but he doesn’t deny that the blueprints the dead humans come to the afterlife with don’t remain static, that even when faced with similar circumstances sometimes they’re fickle, and with new information and time, they too can morph into a better version of themselves. When push comes to shove, if Michael wanted his neighbourhood experiment to stand a chance, he needed time to adjust in the light of that revelation. And if human flaws can change into merits with history and knowledge, if the system is broken, then –

Well Michael was compelled to explore at least that small, plausible possibility.

What they’ve bought is time, time to flesh out the details. Time to show that each of them is just as capable of change, with varying degrees of memory, while forgetting that they’re being tested on their morality, while forgetting the fact they’re dead. Time to build their case, convince Michael, convince everyone the system needs a refresh.

Dustin sticks out his tongue, the day before the 705th reboot, the first of many new experiments they’ve decided to undertake. “So no more putting this off for work Christopher. You owe me that date before you forget you owe me.”

Chris laughs. “Got me there. Mark, Wardo, you heard the man.”

“Have fun guys.” Eduardo waves them off, leaving just him and Mark alone in the center of the neighbourhood.

“This could change the entire afterlife system as it stands. Aren’t you scared it won’t work?” Eduardo asks.

“No, we’re going to beat this. I’ve done it once, I can do it again.” Mark shrugs, speaking like it's a fact.

“How can you be so confident?”

“Because I’ve already gone through hell seven hundred and four times to figure out I wanted you Wardo. I don’t want to ever forget that, I don’t think any version of me can.” Mark answers simply.

Eduardo snorts. “Didn’t peg you for a romantic. You know he’s going to actually wipe your memory this time right?”

“It’ll probably help me, forgetting all those times you hated me.”

“You won’t remember this, but I’ve never hated you Mark. No version of me could.” Eduardo admits. It’s nothing Mark didn’t already know deep down, but it’s liberating, hearing Eduardo say it out loud. Especially since it’s something he’s to forget in a day’s time, before they cycle through it again, with nothing more than a hunch and faith to go off of the first time.

He tries to remember the first time waking up in this place, how he felt when he first saw Eduardo, mixed emotions of pain and relief, and felt grateful for his second chance that was soon to go awry hundreds of times. It’s like his cornerstone, tying him down for a few hundred, thousand times more – if he has to.

“I know Wardo.” Mark smiles cheekily, and waits for tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap. Thanks to everyone who's been reading along, I really appreciate it. Kudos & comments are always welcome :)
> 
> And if you haven't watched "The Good Place", it's never too late to start! This fic is really in no way a good representation of how masterful that show is. 
> 
> Cheers!


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